Veron Urdarianu A Museum for the Artist / A House for the Mind

Veron Urdarianu’s architectural sculptures are striking for their playfulness and multifunctional possibilities. They represent ‘active houses’ and demonstrate that change, movement and transformation are important elements in Urdarianu’s work.

In this exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum, Urdarianu shows both architectural sculptures and paintings. The key work in the exhibition is a model entitled ‘Museum for an Artist/An Architect’s Dream’: it represents a building with sliding and expanding sections which can be used to make it thirty per cent bigger. Folded up, the house is closed and inward-looking. Unfolded, it is open and full of light. The occupant can change it to suit his mood. With these structures, Urdarianu joins the ranks of artists such as Constant, Thomas Schütte and Jan van de Pavert, who also produced utopian constructions. But in Urdarianu’s case, that utopian architectural world does not stop with the sculptures. It merges seamlessly into the paintings displayed in the same space