"Bad Boy" Alexa and transparent sales at cheeky prices

One of the best-selling emerging artists in Romania is looking for the perfect place for the spectacular series of paintings dedicated to the late voice of The Cranberries.

Liviu Alexa recently turned 47. Tough investigative journalist, he consolidated his reputation as a "bad boy" this year when, without any warning to the quiet world of Romanian art, he opened not one, but two solo exhibitions almost simultaneously, each with a different theme. Both impressed not only the public but also the collectors. According to the statements of the organizers, the Art Museum in Cluj, respectively the Kulterra gallery in Bucharest, 80% of the exhibited works were sold during the exhibitions. He tells the story of each work on social media, involves his followers directly in the creative process, shows them step-by-step how he thinks about each painting and publishes the proceeds of each sold work, accompanied by bank proof. an emerging artist", he says.

During this year, Liviu Alexa publicly shared the proceeds from the sale of his paintings, amounting to 250,000 euros, which makes him, probably, the best-selling emerging artist in Romania. With the same boldness that marked his entire career as a writer or journalist, the artist Alexa wants more: he wants to conquer the world, but not in any way.

Liviu Alexa, in the exhibition at the Art Museum Cluj-Napoca

You closed the second personal exhibition and finished the third series of works, dedicated to the late Dolores O'Riordan, the voice of the Irish band The Cranberries, how do you spend your recovery break?

Liviu Alexa: Look, I was born in communism, in the Balkans, in a country where a man raised in the basement of poverty doesn't have much time to relax if he wants to survive. Besides, I'm not 20 anymore, so I can't allow myself to tell myself, as an artist, that I have my whole life ahead of me and that I can take it slow.

When I look at my idol, Anselm Kiefer, the German painter whom I just admired at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, in the extraordinary exhibition "Le Alchimiste", I think that if he is working at this pace at 81, I really don't have any reason to let it go.

Do you dream of becoming famous like Kiefer or rich like Dalí?

Liviu Alexa: Honestly, what genuine artist wouldn't want that? What kid who plays tennis doesn't dream of being like Novak Djokovic? Succeeding as an artist today is very different from 60 or 150 years ago.

On the one hand, the art world remains hermetic and largely snobbish. On the other hand, this shell is increasingly cracked by extremely talented artists who, for example, no longer need galleries to be represented and earn more money by promoting themselves through social networks that have become a huge magnifying glass through which the public looks at their art.

I don't have a gallery to represent me. I haven't yet. Maybe I never will, although I don't rule it out. But if I decide to give a gallery a 50% commission on my sales, I want to know that I won't be treated like another dietary supplement on the shelf, like the ten brands of condoms displayed in the same drugstore.

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]Some might say you're too naughty…

Liviu Alexa: No i'm naughty I am incredibly passionate about what I do. And my job as an investigative journalist, which I have been practicing for 28 years, also makes me look at the art market with cynicism and objectivity. It is a market that has become filled with routine, convenience, overvaluation and prejudice.

Today, if you are not an LGBT, African or Ukrainian artist, you are about 80% less likely as an emerging artist to be promoted by the major galleries and specialist press. And this makes me wonder what chances I have, a heterosexual, religious artist and, on top of that, wearing the Balkan label. Besides, I would never deny my Balkan origins. I adore them. But if extraordinary Romanian artists like Adrian Ghenie or Victor Man have succeeded "outside", I hope. If you piss me off, I won't solve anything. Ghenie did not shrink and today it is on the lips of the whole world. Man did not shrink and today he has an entire floor in the Paris building of the Pinault foundation. And they sell canvases starting from one million euros and up. 90% of the Romanian artistic mass breathes envy from that evil, a breath of frustration, instead of being proud of Ghenie and Man not only that they have reached blue chips, but that they are Romanians in the stratosphere of art with a big "A". On Substack and in general on your social media accounts you show week by week the paintings you are working on and detail your success…

Liviu Alexa: …and failures. I even showed how, one evening, I tore a painting to pieces with a knife that didn't work and was annoying me. I think the era of the intangible, withdrawn, melancholic artist, convinced that his image must be built according to the principle of "less is more" is largely over.

I want people who follow me to know what I read, what excites me, what irritates me, to know that I have a child extraordinary, a beautiful and intelligent wife or that my soul is full of sadness because my quadruped rescued from the street, Alo, now has cancer and doesn't have long to live.

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]And the daffodils look lovely today (The Dolores Portrait), by Liviu Alexa

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]Ai confessed that you want to go beyond the borders of the country with the third series, entitled "The daffodil lament", dedicated to Dolores O'Riordan and her troubled life. 21 announced works are finished, you don't have a gallery to represent you, you don't seem very interested in finding one, how can expansion to other markets happen?

Liviu Alexa: You know what's funny? Although the series was not finished and I am not represented by any gallery, six of the 21 paintings are already sold and paid for in full. It's unbelievable what's happening to me.

Yes, I hope to be noticed by a big name in Europe or the United States. But I don't want to take notice. I think this series is an exceptional artistic tribute to a unique voice, a brilliant composer who reshaped the soul of tens of millions of people, including mine.

Dolores is no longer with us, but I have been listening to her for thirty years, week after week, and I have passed her music on to my ten-year-old son, Ștefan. That's what I think is really important when you're a great artist: the legacy you leave. And Dolores and The Cranberries left the world with something huge.

My paintings are sad, seductive and obsessive, just like her songs were, and reflect the extraordinary fragility of an exceptional artist. In these works I talk about depression, doubt, suicide, disappointment, isolation, the fear of loving, anger and hope — all themes that crossed Dolores' life and work. Check out my artist site – alexa.space – I say I will plate.

Zombie, by Liviu Alexa

Have you tried to contact someone from the rest band?

Liviu Alexa: Sure, I contacted the remaining members. I asked them for some kind of artistic blessing. They didn't answer me. It's a shame, because Dolores is gone, and the band, in its former form, no longer exists. I thought any sincere tribute to her memory was at least worth looking into.

Maybe they thought I was just an opportunist trying to cash in on her name. I'm not. I have The Cranberries lyrics tattooed on my body. For good. I breathe Dolores. I wish they would look at my paintings. They would understand how serious I am.

With or without them, I will exhibit this series at some point and do everything I can to make Dolores proud of me from up there.

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]What is your biggest dream for this third exhibition? Where would you like to present it: in Rome, in Paris, maybe in Berlin?

Liviu Alexa: You will laugh, but I am not interested in simply exhibiting in capital X or Y of the art world. And here I think I'm a bit atypical.

For example, the series with Dolores I would like to exhibit in the spectacular complex of the Prada Foundation in Milan, but not anywhere, but exclusively in the space called Cisterna, a place that can only be truly understood by those who have visited it.

Or, for example, I dream of reaching the White Cube in London, even though I know that at the moment it seems beyond the possibilities my I'm an artist from the bottom of Eastern Europe, what am I looking for there?!

But just like Salvatore Ferragamo, a poor 16-year-old boy who worked as an apprentice in a shoe factory, day by day dreamed of conquering the world and ended up stepping on the feet of legendary women like Greta Garbo and Sophia Loren, and I, a 47-year-old kid, have every right to dream.