“An archive is a “formidable device” created by man’s primary obsessions: belonging/fear of losing data/order, control and influence/, three diabolical precious tools that define power enforced by ourselves over our chaotic lives since the beginning of humanity. Everything that an archive contains is religiously selected, stored, saved, manipulated and it can be destroyed in a second.”
“The Archivist” (2021) is the second video work made in Copenhagen as part of a larger artistic research project on the concept of the archive. Here, the unusual character in an archivist from the a possible future, operating his daily duties, in a power exchange ritual. Every step of his work procedure is strictly supervised and approved by a superior entity behind the front camera. The main parts of the choreographic moves are inspired by the body positions from Renaissance sculptures. Delimiting from other groups of society, the blue stroke on the mouth of the archivist is a mark of the people having this key profession, having as a reference the German expressionism.
Operating as performance artist, writer and director, Buescu’s artistic praxis combines autobiographical elements with techniques of research and documentary mainly staged as live performance art pieces. Alexandru Buescu was born in 1985 in Bucharest, The Socialist Republic of Romania, under the communist regime of Ceaușescu. His work questions social issues related to: freedom of speech, fake news, internet, individual or collective memory, distribution of the sensible, human alienation due to technology, rituals, family, adulthood, isolation, fear, loss of individuality or the duality and problem of the ego. At the same time, it challenges assumptions, perceptions and expectations related to his own art practice and research. To this the live dimension of his performances aims to create inspiring or provocative experiences for the audience, where the vitality of the (rebellious) human body as opposed to fixed, rigid structures (buildings, concrete floors, machines, the earth) is always displayed as a declaration of freedom against oppressive treatments. By creating unexpected situations or inventing ambiguous “characters”, directly or indirectly related to his own nature, in his performances Buescu investigates the roles of the performer and the audience, the exposure of body, the question of the representation from conventional schemes to real situations.
