THE POLICE ARE ON OUR SIDE - 1991

THE POLICE ARE ON OUR SIDE - PERORMANCE - HELIOS GALERY - TIMIŞOARA, 1991

Who Shot at Us? – performance staged at the Helios Gallery in Timișoara, 1991, in the post-revolutionary cultural context, when theaters and exhibition halls stood empty, and the public’s attention was focused entirely on the events of December 1989.

Artists Carmen Paiu, Constantin Răducanu, and Valeriu Mladin were brought to the opening in handcuffs, escorted by two police cars with sirens, and deliberately delayed by 30 minutes. Even the art critic Adriana Babeți, who opened the exhibition, was unaware of the plan.

The action had a very powerful impact: it immediately drew a large audience, intrigued by the apparent police intervention, and was broadcast that evening on Timișoara television news, without commentary. The performance remains a radical artistic intervention linking the trauma of the Revolution with truth, society, and the transformative role of art.