Iulian Mereuță, “Screen Prints by R. B. Kitaj,” translated from Romanian by Jozefina Komporaly, originally published as “Serigrafii de R. B. Kitaj,” in Arta 5 (1976)

Iulian Mereută (1943–2015) was a Romanian artist and theorist, who emigrated to Paris in the late 1970s. Before his departure he acted as an editor of Arta (the only specialized magazine on visual arts in Romania). He was particularly interested in (neo)avant-garde, Surrealism, and Performance art, and as a writer paid considerable attention to the printed works of various artists. This chapter introduces American topics to a specialized audience, focusing on artists with no overt political implications: Kitaj, Tobey, Albers. While this reflects the power of state censorship, Mereută is notable as an advocate of abstract art in a context that was not officially sympathetic to abstraction. What matters is gliding away from a language that is a signifier of utility (in the sense in which any book or magazine cover is) into a pure and clear language of non-signification.