The Revenge of the Artist

Ion Barladeanu;

"I feel as if I have been born again," he said, as some of France's leading collectors and curators jostled for position to see his collages. "Now I feel like a prince. A pauper can become a prince. But he can go back to being a pauper too."...

Barledeanu describes himself as a "director" of his own films and considers each collage to be a movie in itself. While many are light-hearted, others are darker, infused with black humour and often focusing on the man he calls his "greatest fear". "I knew that if he knew about my work Ceausescu would not sleep in peace in his grave," he said. "If people had found out about my work they could have chopped my head off … But this is my revenge."...

Whatever the world thinks, Barladeanu says he will carry on working regardless. "It's like eating pie or sandwiches. It fulfils me," he said in his fast-paced Romanian slang. "If I were reincarnated in another life I would still be making collages, and if I could take them to the moon I would."