Work
/4
- Work
- 2000
- video, color, sound
- 5min, 47sec
White paper is a constant in Pavel Brăila's early performances, a screen between two worlds that have equal claims on the artist’s devotion. The first is the world of the immediate, the rough, honest context in which Brăila lives, the muddy soil and the familiar faces one calls home. The second is the artistic world—not yet the pragmatic, ruthless, global, English-speaking “art world,” but—at the time when “Work” was performed—a meeting place for a small, idealistic crowd of individuals who could afford to take risks, to look for new means of expression, to be, as the artist recalls, “at ease and spontaneous, situated outside the commercial circuit, confident that art could change something .” In “Work”, the artist brings these two worlds together, trying to make one part of the other. The camera watches both his determined gestures and the audience in the casual atmosphere, capturing the amused, puzzled or merely curious gazes. R.V.