KVOST SchauFenster

The desire for healing is at the heart of the new group of works Offerings by Romanian artist Nona Inescu, which is being presented at the KVOST SchauFenster.

Oversized votive images, so-called tamatas, visualise the fear of the frailty of the body and at the same time give hope for a miraculous intervention.

In modern Greek, the word “τάμα” (tama) refers to an offering to a deity as an intercession or in gratitude for help granted. The metal plates show various parts of the body that may be ill or injured and are asked to be healed. It is a kind of promise that is fulfilled when a person or their loved ones are in danger or in a bad way. The life-size votive offerings in the display window encourage people to reflect and re-evaluate the meaning of ritual gestures in a constantly evolving world.

Inescu first began to explore the significance of Tamatas during the Covid pandemic. She realised that great despair and a sense of powerlessness led to a renaissance of belief in miracles. In her installation Offerings, physical integrity becomes a metaphor for broader needs. Inescu selected motifs that stand for the human senses. The tactility of the skin as a membrane between inside and outside, self and world, invites viewers to reflect on their own experiences and how they deal with crises such as war or climate change. Offerings is therefore particularly well suited to the SchauFenster format, an intervention in everyday life that extends from the gallery’s art space to the street.

Inescu’s interdisciplinary artistic practice includes photography, installations, sculptures and video works. Starting from a theoretical and literary perspective, her works focus on the relationship between the human body and the environment. In doing so, she moves away from the anthropocentric position that assigns humans a prominent position in the cosmos. Instead, Insecu’s works question the position of man in a post-human context. The mediating properties of the body are used in various ways to project an affective understanding of the world. Concepts of geological time and the deep connection with our environment form the aesthetics of a primal contemporary togetherness within an organic and biological techno-sphere.

Nona Inescu (*1991) lives and works in Berlin and Bucharest. She graduated from the National University of Arts in Bucharest (Photography and Video Department) in summer 2016, after studying at Chelsea College of Art & Design in London (2009-2010) and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (2010-2011). Recent exhibitions have taken place at Le CAP Saint-Fons (Lyon), Contemporary Fine Arts (Berlin), Kunstraum Kreuzberg (Berlin), MAMAC (Nice), Radius (Delft), SpazioA (Pistoia), Center Clark (Montreal), Art Encounters Biennale (Timișoara), Steirischer Herbst (Graz), Peles Empire (Berlin), basis (Frankfurt), Tallinn Art Hall (Estonia), Museo della Montagna (Torino), among others.

Dina Weis / 2023

The KVOST SchauFenster is illuminated daily from 2 – 10 pm.