La Galleria: Oana Maria Cajal: Posters For Unwritten Plays
OPENING RECEPTION: Wednesday May 13th, 6-8pm La MaMa Galleria is pleased to present “POSTERS FOR UNWRITTEN PLAYS,” Oana Maria Cajal’s first solo exhibition in New York. The kaleidoscopic presentation of multimedia happenings is dedicated to the great and always inspiring Ellen Stewart. The show functions as the conceptual presentation of “POSTERS FOR UNWRITTEN PLAYS,” the first publication portraying images for plays that have not yet been written (Romanian Cultural Institute Publishing House, 2015). The exhibition also includes “WORKING WITH FENNARIO, STOP ALL WARS! WAR-TRUTH-THEATRE,” Picto-Essay documenting a novel paradigm about the interaction of graphic arts and theatre making, as well as “ABELARD AND HELOISE UNDER THE MAGIC OF ELLEN STEWART,” visual prelude to The Promised Play.
Why do I paint? Why do I write? To incite you to be inspired by how sad, how beautiful, how desperate, how divine, how frightful, how peaceful, how dark and how luminous life is! I feel that the best place to bring you my message is the theatre. Because theatre can be the most alive place on Planet Earth! A place where people come truly together in the simultaneity of their shared emotions. A place where people dig, shoulder to shoulder, across the archeological sites of their forgotten beliefs, collective memories, their fears and their dreams. A place where they discover that in the omnipresent spotlight of Death, Life shines always in its brightest colors!
Right now! This moment is your life!
–Oana Maria Cajal
Once we open Oana’s unique album, “POSTERS FOR UNWRITTEN PLAYS,” we assume a risk. What are we really asked? To get involved, to fight against our inner blockages, such as fear, laziness or passivity, to relax when we discover that, in fact, we can all be creative. The idea is that every human being is a potential Artist. Not just playwrights can write plays, but even we, who haven’t yet discovered our potential, the author seems to assure us. The most exciting aspect of this book is the desire to instill confidence in the ability to create, to become artists ourselves. It is an act of generosity on the part of Oana Maria Cajal, who gives us courage: “Like Pirandello’s characters in search of an author my posters are searching for their still unwritten plays.” Inspired, we have the option to attempt to visualize something other, to experience a reality that is revealed to us, that surprises us. And all this, under Ellen’s magic presence beyond the time, Ellen the mysterious priestess of the temple of creation.
–Andrei Serban, Theatre Director
Oana Maria Cajal is an award winning playwright, screenwriter, and visual artist. Cajal was born in Bucharest, Romania, and immigrated to the US in 1980. She currently resides in Montreal.
La MaMa Galleria
Founded in 1984, La Galleria is a nonprofit gallery committed to nurturing experimentation in the visual arts. La Galleria encourages an active dialogue between new media, performance, the plastic and visual arts, curatorial projects, and educational initiatives. It serves the East Village community by offering diverse programming to an inter-generational audience, and expanding the parameters of a traditional gallery space. As a non-profit, La Galleria is able to provide artists and curators with unique exhibition opportunities that are largely out of reach in a commercial gallery setting.