Performing Modernism: A Jewish Avant-Garde in Bucharest

Alexandra Chiriac’s book, Performing Modernism: A Jewish Avant-Garde in Bucharest, offers a wealth of insights into the emergence and evolution of Romanian modernism through the contribution and role of Jewish artists and theater designers. The book is seen as a welcome addition to the scholarship on Romania’s interwar avant-garde, as highlighted in Irina Livezeanu’s preface, but also makes a valuable contribution toward a more all-encompassing understanding of modernism and avant-garde. Through Chiriac’s focus on less well-known figures and also, and perhaps more importantly, her emphasis on design and performance we are offered a different story.

The book’s introduction tackles issues around the subject of Romanian and Jewish avant-garde. Chiriac notes that she has purposely avoided the category of “Romanian avant-garde” to steer away from canonical understandings of the avant-garde. Instead, through her focus on the fluctuating and contested notion of “Jewish” identity the reader can follow the trajectories of several Jewish designers. These examples include Andrei Vespremie and Max Herman Maxy, both based in Bucharest, whose work defies categorization “be it national, disciplinary, or otherwise” (p. 19). The use of an altered lens has allowed a detailed inspection of different types of cultural production, specifically in the fields of design and performance, further disrupting the more traditional understandings of avant-garde artistic practices. This shift in focus is one of the book’s strengths and makes a welcome contribution to the scholarship that acknowledges the fluid boundaries of modernism rather than approaching it through strategies of exclusion.