Electoral Meeting
/29
- Electoral Meeting
- 1975
- 29 b&w photographs
- 27 x 40 cm
The 29-part photo series, "Electoral Meeting" - March 6, 1975 is a relevant example for Ion Grigorescu’s approaches both to the outer world and to his artistic mission. The photos were clandestinely taken, with the camera hidden at the hip level, during a masquerade electoral meeting organized by the Communist Party and strictly supervised by the infiltrated members of the secret police, most of the times covered as union leaders. Soon afterwards, photographing in the city was to be completely prohibited, probably in order to hide the apocalyptic destruction of the cities. In spite of being taken under pressure, the photos are not mere illustrations of an episode from the history of Romanian oppression, but rather punctual observations of the inner mechanisms of the evil. The subjects (the confused, cohesionless but nonetheless docile masses) as well as the instruments (the individuals enforcing the control, depicted in a manner shifting from realist photography to demoniacal representation in orthodox iconography) are all part of an absurd unfolding (the organized gathering, the directed spontaneity, the pointless demonstration and the ending), in a desolating circularity of mechanical development of actions that lead nowhere and have no consistent meaning other than filling the roles set by an outer structure, the discreet but tormenting evil. C.C.