Sherban Epuré

Sherban Epuré (also Șerban Epuré, 18 February 1940, Bucharest - 2018, New York) was a Romanian artist.

He studied at the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, from 1956 to 1961. In 1961 he resigned from his job in the electronics company. In 1966 he gave up his career as an engineer and retired to a mountain village, devoting himself entirely to painting. A year later he had his first solo exhibition, in which he exhibited 100 paintings. Following the exhibition he was awarded a special mention by the Union of Fine Artists of Romania.

By 1967, he was working on projects combining art and science in Romania. Epuré put cybernetics, as a creative engine, at the core of his art and by the end of 1967, his art developed in two main strands, which he called S-Bands and Meta-Phorms. The S-Band (or Sherban's Band) may be seen as an interactive machine able to reconfigures twelve visual variables, three of geometry and eight of color; the background is the last of these. The scope of the band is not to imitate nature, as origami does, but to produce non-subjective, enjoyable art forms. The Meta-Phorm (derived from Meta+Metaphor+Form) is intended to be the the visual appearance/materialisation of an abstract creative proposition by introducing geometrical forms into a game relationship.

He exhibited cybernetically based / digital work at the 7th and 8th Paris Biennale for Young Artists in 1971 and 1973, the 25th Edinburgh Festival, 1971, the 9th Sigma Festival in Bordeaux, France, 1973, the Fine Art Competition, Cyprus, (Award), 1973, and at The New Gallery in Bucharest, Romania, 1974. At the Sigma 9 Contact II (1973) in Bordeaux, his work was presented alongside some of the most influential artists and animators in computer art, such as Georges Charbonnier, Abraham Moles, Herbert Franke, Herve Huitric, Peter Kreiss, Kenneth Knowlton, Vera Molnar, Manfred Mohr, and Georg Nees.

In an article for Leonardo magazine published in 2006, Epuré described his experience as an artist struggling to survive in Romania during the 1970s, and the decision to emigrate. In March 1980, he moved to the United States, settling in New York on a residence permit for "exceptional qualities in the field of art." Here he studied at the School of Visual Arts, and subsequently participated in the New York Digital Salon, SIGGRAPH and many other digital art shows. He began using an Apple Macintosh in 1985, but was well aware of the limitations of the technology available at that time. He lived and worked in New York until his death.

His works are in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, (The Patric Prince Collection of digital art.); Museum of Modern Art, MOMA, New York; the National Gallery, Bucharest, Romania.

Publications

• "Redefinirea structurii artistului. Atitudine cibernetică, gândire matematică" [Cybernetic Attitude, Mathematical Thinking], România Literarã 25, Bucharest, 13 Jun 1970. (Romanian)
• "Cibernetica şi arta" [Cybernetics and Art], Arta Plasticã 7, Bucharest, Sep 1970. (Romanian)
• "S-Benzi" [S-Bands], Arta Plasticã 7, Bucharest, Sep 1970, pp 33-36. (Romanian)
• "S-Benzi" [S-Bands], Science and Technique, Bucharest, Jun 1971. (Romanian)
• "Glosar" [Glossary], Arta 1-5, Bucharest, Feb-Aug 1971. The "Glossary" was published throughout most of 1971, as a series of monthly articles. It dealt with such terms as: cybernetics, structure, input, output, feedback behavior, information, the significance of information, feedback, black-box, redundancy, noise, sensibility, original, entropy, etc. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] (Romanian)
• "Realismul matematic" [Realism Mathematic], (cont.), (cont.), Arta Plasticã, Bucharest, 13 Apr 1973. (Romanian)
• "Matematică şi construcţie anatomică" [Mathematics and Anatomical Constructions"], (cont.), Secolul XX 11-12, Bucharest, 1973. (Romanian)
• "Artă plastică și metode cibernetice" [Fine Arts and Cybernetic Methos], (cont.), (cont.), Bucharest: New Gallery, Mar 1974. Catalog text; part of the Art and Energy exhibition, at The New Gallery, Bucharest. (Romanian)
• "Aplicații ale metodelor cibernetice în artă plastică" [Applications of Cybernetic Methods in Fine Arts], Arta Plastică, Bucharest, Oct 1974. (Romanian)
• "Artist Statement: Persona 2", Leonardo 34:5, 2001, p 524. (English)
• "An Artist's Journey in Art and Science: From behind the Iron Court to Present-Day America", Leonardo 39:5, MIT Press, Oct 2006, pp 402-409, 436. [6] (English)
• "Intrinsic Art: A Cultural Capsule", Leonardo 49:5, Oct 2016, pp 406-411. [7] (English)
• more

Literature

• Octavian Barbosa, "Sherban Epuré - Diet Sayler", Contemporanul, Bucharest, 20 Feb 1970. (Romanian)
• Mihai Nadin, "Art as Invention: Sherban Epuré in Memoriam", Leonardo 53:1, 2020, pp 94-97, HTML. [8] (English)
• more

See also

• Romania#Computer and computer-aided art

Links

• Personal website (archived 2022)
• Profile on compArt
• Epuré in Leonardo Electronic Dictionary
• http://www.sculpture.ro/fisa.php?id=371
• http://enciclopediaromaniei.ro/wiki/Şerban_Epure