Mirela Tanta
Dissertation Fellow
Department of Art History
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About
Mirela Tanta is a doctoral candidate in the Art History Department of the University of Illinois at Chicago, working on a dissertation titled “Didactic Arts or Sites of Resistance: Socialist Realism in Romania, 1945-1989.” Originally from Romania, Tanta came to the United States as an ArtsLink program fellow in poetry and as a guest of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Her creative publications include: Watchword, Another Chicago Magazine, and Milk Magazine. She has presented her scholarly work at The Art Institute of Chicago, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Selected Publications
“State Propaganda or Sites of Resistance: Socialist Realism in Romania, 1970-1989”
Abstract: Haunted by the twenty percent of Bucharest torn down for its construction, in 2004 and 2005 respectively, the “Ceausescu Palace” formally opened its doors as the first National Museum of Contemporary Art and as the first democratic Parliament. This multipurpose building (palace, “house of the people,” house for art, house for legislation) provides the point of departure for my research. I focus on the collection of Socialist Realist paintings located in the Museum by inspecting the implementation of Soviet Socialist Realism in Romania. This lecture will explore potential instances of artistic agency during the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania suggesting that artists may have used Socialist Realist painting conventions as tactics simultaneously to survive in and to alter the system.