For ancient cultures, art was a means to create reality and to mediate between past, present and future. Images, unlike people, are infinite beings, the material acting as a vehicle for the spiritual. The group exhibition Infinite Beings brings together works developed by five artists from various generations and cultures over the past 70 years. Timeless zoomorphic sculptures, abstract structures and objects from daily life imbued with spirituality incorporate ancestral knowledge, while raising questions for the future.

The totemic apparition of Erika Verzutti‘s Cat (2017) materializes out of a ground zero, leading back to the origins of sculpture. Networks of dots, organised in galaxies and shapes reminiscent of ancient monuments, are infused with mysticism in the drawings and sculptures of Horia Damian. Mihai Olos developed the module as a structure with infinite potential, based on the knot element found in traditional Romanian architecture. The Universal City was his utopian vision for a form of living in tune with the rhythm of nature. 

In 1977, Joseph Beuys invited Olos to present his wooden modules during documenta 6. This led to a decade-long friendship, which culminated in the joint action The Gordian Knot (1980). Beuys’ expanded notion of sculpture included the utopian concept of EURASIA, which stemmed from his nomadic attitude and his fascination with the territory described by Caroline Tisdall, an art critic and friend of Beuys, as “[…] the Celtic fringes, the periphery of Europe, where he [Beuys] believed the old magic was strong.” Nomadism becomes especially significant in the context of Beuys’ notion of movement as a sculptural material, which allows for the possibility of radical social improvements in the future.

Just like rocks impressed with fossils, the textiles of the Identity Shirts by Ana Lupaș (a generation of works from 1969), incorporating gaps, tears, and patches, are embedded with traces of a convoluted personal history shaped over the years. For the Seraphim Shirt and Cherubim Shirt, both from 1970, the front elements of old shirts were stitched by the artist with drawing-like lines, the decaying cloth being a reminder that, just as textile needs constant, careful mending, so too do the principles of humanity.