Lorem ipsum is the standard text used to simulate portions of text in the design process of a print or website. Although on the surface the Lorem ipsum text appears to be meaningless, the original fragment is found in a work by Cicero dating from 45 BC, entitled De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum. The form lorem ipsum is actually a truncated version for dolorem ipsum, i.e. “pain itself”. The passage in question is this: “Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sitamet, consectetur, adipisci velit…”, which would translate as follows: “No one likes pain in itself, nor does he seek or desire it, because it is pain…”
Darie Dup’s exhibition at the Craiova Museum of Art, from September-November 2020, starts from this syntagm but, in this case, the generic Lorem ipsum has no substitute function and no reference in any way to pain. On the contrary, the Latin syntagm reflects rather the diversity and versatility of the discourse, of the exhibition “design” (i.e., of the conception, not necessarily of its arrangement). Darie Dup’s Lorem ipsum is thus an exhibition that can be about anything. And more than that. An exhibition conceived as a fragmentary journey that brings together the artist’s major interests of recent years, surprising in their variety, meaning and expression, but bearing a strong personal note, well defined, of the mature artist, but always in search of ideas and language renewal.
Horea Avram
