Room 1

Sancho Panza (2017) is an artwork that inaugurates the relationship between reality and fantasy, a rift that characterizes Vîrtosu’s artistic quests. Panza, the fictional character of “Don Quixote”, the novel written by Miguel de Cervantes, illustrates the process of how a pragmatic perspective eventually brings equilibrium to its counterpart, which is portrayed by a dreamer, Don Quixote, a hidalgo that becomes by means of imagination a knight-errant.

Sancho Panza

Manco Cápac (2015) was the legendary founder of the Inca empire in Peru and the reputed founder of the capital Cuzco. Although exact dates are missing, it is generally acknowledged that the establishment of the Inca kingdom in Peru falls roughly within the 12th century.

Manco Cápac

Kim Jong-Un (2016), the supreme leader of North Korea, successor of his father to the reign, rules the country according to a national strategy named byungjin (often translated as “parallel development”), which emphasizes the development of the economy along with its defence capabilities, especially nuclear ones.

Kim Jong-Un

Park Geun-Hye, the 11th president of South Korea and the first woman to be elected in a democratic process for that position, although widely acclaimed, was impeached for a wide corruption scandal, which was only one of the many to come scandals she was involved in. The most important was related to her bloodline, as she was accused of being ”the daughter of a dictator”.

Park Geun-Hye

Eva Braun was a photographer by profession who met Adolf Hitler as a teenager and, in the last days of the war, after being his long-time mistress, became the führer’s wife. Although unclear the extent to which she was involved in the Nazi propaganda machinery, the perception of Braun has gone through a definite turn in the media. Starting of as a “dumb blonde”, she became the one to take pictures and films portraying Hitler at his Berghof retreat as a likeable caring person and family man, fond of children.

Eva Braun

The ”Frustrated Harlequin” is inspired by the character depicted in the Italian ”Commedia dell’arte” during the 16th century and was popularized with the help of numerous influential actors from the era. The character itself has taken on various forms over the years, but is often represented as a light-hearted, intelligent and mischievous individual who is the servant of a wealthy entrepreneur/landowner. He is often seen ruining his master’s plans and engaging in flirtatious banter with a love interest.

Frustrated Harlequin

Alois Hitler, father of Adolf Hitler, was a critical paternal figure who delineated a harsh environment for his children to grow up in. Self-sufficiency, a trait that Adolf inherited as well, was due to their epistemic enquiries that regarded them, eventually, as having a very good opinion of themselves.

Alois Hitler

The Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Dual Monarchy was a constitutional monarchy and multinational state in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. Austria-Hungary was a military and diplomatic alliance of two sovereign states. 

The Austro-Hungarian Empire

Klara Polzl, mother of Adolf Hitler, was a young woman whose presence validated her son’s empathic traits despite the tragic harms he inflicted on the Jewish population. Standing by her rude and violent husband and trying to educate her stubborn child, Klara proved to be Achille’s heel for the dictator once she was diagnosed with breast cancer. 

Klara Polzl

“Disappointed storks” (2017) portrays a motif present for thousands of years in many cultures around the globe – from Egypt to Scandinavia – storks often being associated with family and the human soul. The artist uses their symbolism to convey the feeling of despair, evolved from the inability to make a real difference to the epoch we’re living in. 

Disappointed storks

Augusto Pinochet was the head of the military government of Chile from 1974-1990. He overthrew a socialist government pressing for matters such as the free market in an effort of liberalization. 

Augusto Pinochet

Modern Pollination is an artwork that juxtaposes natural and symbolic changes.

Modern Pollination

Francisco Franco was a Spanish military general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator. In the aftermath of World War II he was called ”the last fascist dictator”, although, in 1948, he became an anticommunist statesman as the relations Spain had with other countries started to improve.  


Francisco Franco

Malaria Epidemic (2017) is a depiction of an on-going medical crisis of the contemporary world and is known to have emerged around the times of ancient Egypt, its recurrence being located now in the space of the 3rd world, as their access to proper medication is limited due to various reasons.

Malaria Epidemic

Peter Lohr is an artwork to be experienced in the solitude of one`s mind.

Peter Lohr

Oscar Groning portrays the image of an ultra-nationalist member of the German SS, ”the bookkeeper” of Auschwitz as he was called. His involvement in the mass killings of nazi Germany was limited to a bureaucratic one according to his testimonies – sorting out belongings and taking money from prisoners.


Oscar Groning

Pol Pot was a Cambodian revolutionary, dictator, and politician who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. He led the Khmer Rouge communist regime that imposed severe hardships on the Cambodian people and caused the deaths of an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians.

Pol Pot

The burden of Bill Gates brings to the fore-front “struggle” as being carried by anyone in the world.

The burden of Bill Gates

The evil eye refers to a supernatural belief in a curse brought about by a malevolent glare, usually given to a person when one is unaware. The evil eye dates back about 5,000 years.

The evil eye

The Saviour counteracts the pessimist perspective of history, balancing it out with a drop of hope which weighs as much as a feather did in order for the soul to be forgiven and be freed in eternity. Over many millennia, the promise of salvation has been described in numerous Holy Books. However, these same texts also indicate that there were many Prophets and Messengers, from Adam to Muhammad, and each of them completed their divine mission before departing from this finite form of life.

The Saviour

The centre-piece of this artwork is ”The Magician”. Who is he? A person who has the power to make impossible things happen, a character that changes reality despite any obstacle encountered.

The Magician

Alien (2016) conveys figures who have been liberated from the oppressions of the terrestrial realm and given the freedom of the sky or space. The Alien becomes representative of the humans as such: we are a mass of faces and bodies which strive to become unique through their originality, but what we are is simply aliens on earth.

Alien

Illuminati (2015) traces the spread of the legend of the secret occult. Historically, the name usually refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on 1 May 1776 in Bavaria. Focused on invisibly guiding the fate of the world, but not as popular culture had depicted their endeavours, an excerpt from their writings brings light to their mission: "The order of the day, is to put an end to the machinations of the purveyors of injustice, to control them without dominating them."

Illuminati

Winner of the 666th century (2015). Not only does the name of Nero Caesar add up to 666 when transliterated into Hebrew letters, but the Hebrew transliteration of the Greek word for “beast” also comes equals 666. Moreover, The King James Version of the Christian Bible says that it is “the number of a man” (Revelation 13:18). Therefore, Virtosu lets us understand one thing – the kingdom of man under the antichrist, which will exist at the end of our age, will be the finest, most wonderful, and thoroughly beautiful kingdom that man has ever devised (that is, from the point of view of mankind).

Winner of the 666th century

Drawing from the symbolism of the previous artwork, Europe in the 66th century (2015) reconstructs from pictorial patches the possibilities implied by an egocentric future – an artificial, decadent and voluptuous time moulded solely by man. 

Europe in the 66th century

Woman Politician (2017). The artist chose smooth, yet active winding lines to represent a state of flux, the one that creates masculine and feminine energies together. According to Asian philosophy, Yin, the female side of classical oriental ‘Yin-Yang’ opposition, is defined by states such as being passive and slow. 

Woman Politician

European`s Solidarity (2015) reflects back on the original perspective of “Europe”, firstly perceived as a liberal concept rather than purely in geographical terms. Creating an imaginary relationship with Europe in the 66th century, the current work of art investigates the congruence between “solidarity” and the implications of being an European. 

European`s Solidarity

Young Quasimodo (2017) is a part of a fragmented tryptic in terms of its subject as it conveys the character’s unfortunate path, one constructed according to his relations with the surrounding world. Quasimodo, a fearful appearance drawn from Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, “Pope of the Fools” as he was called, covers up for a caring soul that has fallen in love with his dear Esmeralda, a girl charmed by the whirls of societal norms.

Young Quasimodo

European optimism (2017). The active usage of blue, on the one hand, is the symbol of hope and serenity, on another, represents the color of depression (for instance, the common expression for the state of sadness is “to feel blue”). This ideally matches the double-edged nature of optimism – the weapon we can use to empower ourselves and motivate to move further, or to create the shield from the reality. But the latter is only a short-lasting privilege, as every ivory tower unavoidably gets demolished.

European optimism

Quasimodo in love (2017). Spikes of colourful paste, laid on top of another, insinuate a sort of disobedience of the artwork itself as it dares to appeal to the viewer’s affective relationship with what might have been himself or herself during youth. Watching the narration of the painting, one cannot skive the possibility of re-enacting a glimpse of the process of becoming a human being in its entirety, which inevitably involves going through the saddening feeling of unrequited love.

Quasimodo in love

Walter Hallstein (2015), one of the founding fathers of the European Union, played key roles representing the Nazi government in official state negotiations regarding the construction of an European dictatorship which would have been the result of mainly fascist and nazist forces, that is Germany and Italy.

Walter Hallstein

Mourning Quasimodo (2017), the last part of the tryptic, closes the cycle of the character’s life touching on a crucial stage of it – death and its echoes amongst the living. This symbolic continuation of Quasimodo in the collective consciousness underlies the infinite influences reverberating in the surrounding world, putting thus on show the importance of the legacy that remains in the world after one dies.

Mourning Quasimodo

Nabopolassar, King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was the founder of the state and the one to bring it to political stability and economic growth. With origins unknown, he is described, according to historical resources, as the ”son of a nobody”, a fact enhancing even more the fact that Babylonia became the leading power of the Middle East while having him reigning.

Nabopolassar King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire

The Resurrection (2015) takes the biblical event of Jesus Christ coming back to life on the third day after his crucifixion as a reference to optimism and its key role in Christianity. Furthered away from the contemporary take, the artwork fixates in time, just like Renaissance painters, the fugitive second of historical time which restores in the human soul the desire to help and be present for another’s needs. 

The Resurrection

Leonidas was a Spartan king whose stand against the invading Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae in central Greece is one of the enduring historical tales defining the Western canon. This episode made a deep impression on the Greek imagination and gave rise to the legend that Spartans never surrendered.

Leonidas

Venice is a capital of culture, a city celebrating appearances, the port for southern cultures to arrive and mix with European art created numerous personas, enmeshment and diversity. A Matrioska of origins gave birth to a curious and fruitful society with uncertain traditions to turn to.

Venice

Gaius Octavius was the first Roman Emperor. Instead of following his great-uncle Caesar's example by making himself dictator, Octavian in 27 BC founded the principate, a system of monarchy headed by an emperor holding power for life. His powers were hidden behind constitutional forms, and he took the name Augustus meaning 'lofty' or 'serene'. Nevertheless, he retained ultimate control of all aspects of the Roman state, with the army under his direct command.

Gaius Octavius

Florence

Vîrtosu’s creative urge is driven by a desire to explore the intricacies and ambiguities of perception, and in this regard, ”Sadness Of Queen Sibylla” (2015) presented him with a challenge – depicting the sadness in motion that is virtually transparent to the eye. It also involves another of his most-loved paradoxes: that of representing the voluble emotion in a still image.

Sadness Of Queen Sibylla

Guy de Lusignan has the distinction of being the king who lost the Kingdom of Jerusalem by leading the Christian army to an unnecessary but utterly devastating defeat at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. Guy of Lusignan was a French knight, the son of Lord Hugh VIII of the Lusignan dynasty. He was the king of the crusader of Jerusalem. He arrived in the Holy Land, where his brother was a prominent figure and was hastily married to Sibylla of Jerusalem to prevent a political incident from happening. 

Guy de Lusignan

The piece is titled “Crown Princess of Sweden and Daniel Westling” (2016) and it is named after one of the biggest weddings to occur in Europe in recent history.

Crown Princess of Sweden and Daniel Westling

Steve Jobs (2015), monumental in its scope, both historical and joyful, wields the full force of Vîrtosu's painterly bravura and pictorial authority with incredible strength and the artist's signature cognitive depth. As a character of the 21st century, he marks the epitome of human evolution.

Steve Jobs

Niccolo Paganini, the Italian violinist and composer known for his numerous romantic quests and the most celebrated virtuoso of his time, ends the first room of the exhibition with a sensible perspective on humanity as he touches with a lot of care the strings of his violin in a admiring gesture towards music and the human soul. Caught in the act, Paganini’s sensibility plays on ours too, allowing us to choose the strains of our own tune.

Room 1

1. Sancho Panza

2. Manco Cápac

3. Kim Jong-Un

4. Park Geun-Hye

5. Eva Braun

6. Frustrated Harlequin

7. Alois Hitler

8. The Austro-Hungarian Empire

9. Klara Polzl

10. Disappointed storks

11. Augusto Pinochet

12. Modern Pollination

13. Francisco Franco

14. Malaria Epidemic

15. Peter Lohr

16. Oscar Groning

17. Pol Pot

18. The burden of Bill Gates

19. The evil eye

20. The Saviour

21. The Magician

22. Alien

23. Illuminati

24. Winner of the 666th century

25. Europe in the 66th century

26. Woman Politician

27. European`s Solidarity

28. Young Quasimodo

29. European optimism

30. Quasimodo in love

31. Walter Hallstein

32. Mourning Quasimodo

33. Nabopolassar King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire

34. The Resurrection

35. Leonidas

36. Venice

37. Gaius Octavius

38. Florence

39. Sadness Of Queen Sibylla

40. Guy de Lusignan

41. Crown Princess of Sweden and Daniel Westling

42. Steve Jobs

43. Niccolo Paganini

Sancho Panza