HEART brings together two complementary artistic perspectives into a visual dialogue about vitality, corporeality, and the relationship between abstract and concrete—between remedy and emotion, design and symbol.

COADY presents Golden Spectra, a series of monumental acrylic sculptures—white and yellow pills that become visual meditations on human fragility and resilience. The series delves into the profound significance of the colour yellow within the tapestry of art history. Yellow, often associated with warmth, vitality, and enlightenment, has been a recurring motif in artistic expression across cultures and epochs. From the radiant glow of sunlight captured by the Impressionists to the symbolic resonance of gold leaf in religious iconography, yellow embodies a spectrum of meanings that transcend mere pigment. Through oversized acrylic pills, COADY explores the intersection of art and medicine, inviting viewers to contemplate the healing properties of color and form.

As a counterpoint, Teodor Graur conducts a visual investigation of the everyday medical realm, using the graphic language of large-format 1980s advertisements to re-semanticize drug names familiar to an entire generation. The heart, a recurring symbol, is recast in circulation between organ, mechanism, and emotion—between what must be protected and what must be cultivated.

THE HEART - a favourite target amongst warriors, a special offering for gods, the source of energy, housing for feelings or simply a handy emoji - needs constant maintenance. Work-out devices invite us to test this muscle that contracts rhythmically throughout its whole life, opening up the possibility that we might need to train our emotional abilities alongside the physical ones. Empathy, understanding, altruism - and so many more activities of the heart, alongside the classical love - need, as any mechanism does, constant exercise, supervision, trickery. 

Together, the two practices create a joint installation about caring for oneself and others, about the body as both political and poetic space, and about the contemporary aesthetics of survival. The exhibition thus becomes an invitation to introspection—to reassess our relationship with what nurtures us, whether it is a shape, a color, a drug name, or a gesture of empathy.

Golden Spectra: An Exploration of Light and Vitality in 2024 was COADY’s first solo show with Sandwich, after several successful collaborations. Catherine COADY is an artist based in Melbourne, whose works have been exhibited in Australia, Milan, Turin, Venice, Basel, and, more recently, Bucharest.

​​Teodor Graur (born 1953) is an artist who has made a lasting impact on Romanian contemporary art since the early 1980s. In his early artistic expressions, he employed performance as a means to voice his opposition to the totalitarian system of that era.

Throughout this artistic evolution, Graur has remained steadfast in his preference for installation as his primary medium of expression. His work has been showcased in prominent galleries and museums, including the MARe Museum of Recent Art (2020), the National Museum of Contemporary Art (2014), Sandwich Gallery (2022), Sector 1 Gallery (2021), Nicodim Gallery (2016/2017), Plan B Gallery (2016) and tranzit ro/ Bucharest (2014).

Curators Introduction :

CATS ARE TAKING OVER

Curated by Alexandru Niculescu & Daniela Palimariu

CATS ARE TAKING OVER is the first exhibition in the contemporary art pavilion of Villa Catena, marking a premiere for this space that aims to generate a warm formula for understanding art.

The exhibition uses the cat - symbol of intimacy, mystery and irony - as a pretext. Cats Are Taking Over is an incursion into the world of charismatic domestic felines, often considered too trivial for ‘serious’ art, which thus reclaim their place in contemporary creation. From housemate to cultural symbol, from mystical symbol to simple everyday presence, who else would be better suited as the main character in an exhibition about the contrasts of the present moment?

Through traditional techniques such as painting, ceramics, sculpture, or through conceptual works, audio, immersive installations and inflatable sculptures, the works brought together create a complex landscape of the present challenges, acting as a collective catalyst whose stimulus is, apparently, a simple pet.

Its various stances are among the most varied: leader cat, fetish cat, totem cat, feminist cat, anatomy of the cat, cat as institutional critic, medicine cat, Dacian cat, sacred cat.

The exhibition includes works created especially for this occasion as well as pieces from private collections. With this joint initiative, Sandwich and the Fildas Art Foundation, through the Catena for Art programme, open a new and invigorating dialogue between the public and contemporary art, highlighting an architectural monument and questioning, with humour and critical spirit, the way we relate to the exhibition space and to art in general.

The project partners are Institutul Francez, Neurohope, Krupa Foundation, Senso Arte.

ARTISTS
Aproximativ 28 (RO), Mihaela Ioana Atomei (RO), Liliana Basarab (RO), Marcel Broodthaers, Dan Basu (RO), Radu Boeru (RO), Anastasia Calinovici (RO), Tudor Ciurescu (RO), Coady (AUS), Vuk Ćuk (SR), Bernat Daviu (ES), Stoyan Dechev (BG), Ecaterina Cristescu Delighioz (RO), Pola Dwurnik (PL), Mari Eastman (USA), Elian (RO), Giles Eldridge (UK), Bianca Ferăstrău (RO), Dimitrie Luca Gora (RO), Dumitru Gorzo (RO), Tobias Hild (DE), Sorin Ilfoveanu (RO), Peter Jecza (RO), Martin Goya Business (CN), Sarah Lucas (UK), Olivia Mihălțianu (RO), Nico Mureș (RO), Marta Mattioli (RO), Giuliano Nardin (RO), Trine Lise Nedreaas (NO), Jin Ningning (CN), Radu Pandele (RO), Dan Perjovschi (RO), Alexandru Rangă (RO), Cristian Răduță (RO), Natasha Shulte (UKR), Francisc Șirato (RO), Anaïs Touchot (FR), Andrei Tudoran (RO), Gabriela Vanga (RO) Dan Vezentan (RO), Mihaela Vezentan (RO), Zhang Zhihui (CN), Béla Zoltán (RO).

Thurs. April 10, 2025, 6-9 pm
Vernissage & inauguration of Vila Catena
str. Radu Calomfirescu 15, Bucharest
hello@sandwichgallery.ro
+40745624526