Muntean/Rosenblum

Muntean / Rosenblum, both born in 1962, began their collaboration in 1992, and in addition to being an artistic duo, they are also a couple in life. Their pictorial world consists of an analysis of the iconography of Christian painting, which they use in a superficial way—through gestures, typical postures, and pathos. However, this particular gesturality is decontextualized and re-employed with subjects far from the traditional ones, focusing on figures such as teenagers, adolescents, and urban settings that seem lifted from fashion and lifestyle magazines. This creates an ambiguity that serves their artistic message.

This rather complex and unusual approach allows the artists to carry out an in-depth and novel analysis of contemporary society. Their works, such as those in the Iannaccone Collection, well represent their method. By transferring contemporary lifestyle models onto the canvas in such stark contrast with the traditional poses their figures adopt, Muntean / Rosenblum underscore the artificiality of contemporary spirituality, conveying this with both bitterness and a sense of irony.

Their traditional painting style, combined with Renaissance iconography and urban settings, seems to deny the possibility of genuine emotions in today’s society, leaving the viewer with a crushing impression of the modern world. To further emphasize their critique, they subtitle their paintings with phrases set against a white background—philosophical quotations mixed with lines taken from various magazines, enhancing the dissonance between image and text.