Romanian artist Ciprian Mureşan is celebrated for short, comic videos that double as allegories of contemporary post-Soviet life in Eastern Europe. He was introduced to New York audiences in the New Museum's 2009 exhibition, "The Generational: Younger than Jesus," and his first U.S. show is currently on view at David Nolan Gallery in Chelsea, July 7-Aug. 12, 2011. Along with drawings, an animation and several videos, the show includes Wizard, an enormous sculpture of a working gumball machine that dispenses colorful plastic balls for free, and the self-explanatory Refrigerator, a household object that has always recalled “a vertical coffin” in Mureşan’s eyes, here embellished with a spray-painted stencil of a cross, suggesting perhaps death by gastronomic excess.
