Nimeni n-are ce merită (No one has what they deserve)
fotografie și maieu, photography and undershirt, 2022
I’ve had this undershirt for a long while, so long that small holes begun to appear. It started to look expensive, in that way that ruined brand clothes are expensive, precarity posing. The text (No one has what they deserve) was something that was on my mind for the last year, as a commentary to privilege and trauma, the obsession of meritocracy and the fright that somehow we deserve our own misfortune. I’ve hesitated for a while to make a billboard of this message as I originally planed, because I found it too cynical. However, when Robert Băjenaru from Cazul 101, an artist run space in Bucharest, asked me to join the (Christmas) exhibition at Matca artist run in Cluj, it looked like the best way to introduce this idea. Cluj is, for many, the capitalist dream city of Romania. Not for too few, it’s the unlivable city of sky high rents and racist public policies. Not to forget about the Christmas, the day of good deeds that make up for overpriced shit, the day when NGOs struggle to manage the large quantities of donated food and toys and so on. Still cynical, but more to the point.
This is a photo of me taken by my partner Mihai Drăgan in our kitchen. I had back pain and depression which I don’t deserve, and I also have a kitchen which I don’t deserve, a white skin, an able body and so on. I have no ambitions as a photographer, we don’t own a professional camera – the trend of deskilled drawing should extend to photography as well. We made a blurry photo of my aching back in a see-through old undershirt allowing you to read the message – which it’s all that matters, isn’t it?
This work was finished and shown in Cluj for 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐍𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬 17.12.22-15.02.2023, a collective show organized at MATCA artspace Cluj-Napoca with Cazul 101 Bucharest.
The photo next to the poem White was shown at the 2025 edition of the Art Encounters biennial in Timișoara. Thank you, Raluca Oancea for covering my contribution in Most Magazine, and Liliana Mercioiu in Revista Arta.
This message addresses both the injustice of the various systems entrapping us and our innate innocence in front of hardships. It might look cynical but, in a world fixed on moving the burden of responsibility on a personal level while simultaneously reducing personal choice, this is a message of liberation and empowerment. While you can barely make out the words because of the lack of contrast between the light skin of the artist’s back and the white of the shirt, it clearly points towards a myriad of heavy subjects such as light skin privilege, meritocracy, precarity, exploitation etc. The work also opens the floor to discuss its very presence in this biennial, through the efforts of so many people involved in the exhibition production in various capacities, who also deserve their labour to be made visible, praised and justly compensated. Thank you all. (text for the label)
