Romania’s punk roots: a new exhibition champions the relevance of the rebellious 90s today

The post punk subcultures of 90s Romania and their influence on contemporary artists is the subject of a new exhibition at Rezidența BRD Scena9 in Bucharest.

PostPunk brings together artworks by three artists — Megan Dominescu, Bandi Sasha Robert, and the Biserika collective — recognisable for their bold colours and provocative, outsider aesthetics.

It also features archive materials relating to the subculture, in particular its rise in the 90s across two Romanian cities, Timișoara and Craiova, led by punk bands such as TerrorArt and feminist zines like LoveKills.

“If in the West, punk groups were usually located at the periphery of cities, in Timișoara and Craiova [of the 90s], we find them in the city centres,” co-curator Mihai Laurențiu Fuiorea told The Calvert Journal. “That’s because the centre lost power: after the Romanian revolution and the end of Ceaușescu’s dictatorship, people were able to claim the centre for protests; there were student demonstrations in the centre of Timișoara, for example, leading to a proliferation of subcultures.”

Fuiorea, who had grown up playing in a punk band as a teenager, says young people in the 90s were drawn to the punk because it offered “a freedom to behave the way we wanted”, rather than the anarchic ideals valued by their Western counterparts. “We felt freedom but also a disillusionment with the fact that the power was still in the hands of the previous ruling class. There was a lot of political chaos, social instability and poverty, with no civic and social state projects. But the moment capitalism fully comes to Romania, for example [in 1995], with [the American-owned commercial television, and third private television channel in Romania] PROTV, which aired tabloid news about ‘satanists’ in Craiova, we became aware of the new enemies: consumer society, and the society of spectacle.”

Among a slew of contemporary artists included in the show, Fuiorea and the co-curator Raluca Oancea also point out that the post punk DIY, rebellious spirit remains an influence on current Romanian feminist zines such as Cutra, as well as radical cultural spaces like the Macaz co-op (now closed).

PostPunk is on display until 9 May at Rezidența BRD Scena9 in Bucharest. Find out more information here.