disPLAY – What is opulence if not the illusion of abundance?

“disPLAY” sets out to examine the paradoxical natures of “showing-off” and “displaying” as reversed means for the acts of “covering” and “hiding”. It is a visual essay on surfaces and explores the ways we deco- rate the darker times of our history with bright ornaments, colors and prints in an attempt to overcompensate for the gaps of a concealed past.

Coming from an Eastern European background, Ella Costache (22 years old) ponders how narratives of kitsch and artificial opulence have been used throughout time to fill in gaudy interiors framed by larger grey exteriors, ( hidden by drapery), but also considers new possibilities of extravagance and self-expres- sion in a space marked by the aesthetic implications of a post-communist trauma.

By using a renewed contemporary vocabulary of simplicity, this study researches the tension between appearance and appropriateness, depth and shallowness and opens up a discourse on the meaning and dangers of what is conventionally understood as ‘good taste’.

Words by: Andrei Lukács