La Moşi
Mosilor Fair
see also this
picture
The Mosilor Fair is a colorful universe, a
bric-a-brac, a bazaar, a happy world bringing
together all kinds of people and objects. It is an
place of accumulation, a modern Wunderkammer.
The general view on the mechanisms is supplemented
by an image taken from the platform’s level. By
focusing, Ionescu sets up a certain secondary time
of the first photo. We are in 1925 and the
mechanisms have been diversified. The most
appreciated are the chains, as the photographer
informs us. In the middle ground, we see their tamed
version: «the chairs », which offer the comfort of
staying close to the ground. The mechanism performs
a centripetal movement, resembling to the one of the
miraculous wheel, but preventing the bodies’
spreading out.
The crowd is fumbling, there are no obvious
directions, but the merry-go-round represents a kind
of nucleus, which rallies the crowd. The moving goes
at the same pace, somewhere to the left, where a
woman escapes a group of people who are talking,
walking in a hurry to the opposite side, where she
has probably seen something which is worth her
attention. The crowd is a motley one: one can see
national costumes and all day costumes. The fair
shows us the half-urban and the half-peasant world
of Bucharest. The fair is a meeting place: peasants
from all over the country come to Bucharest on the
occasion of the Mosi Fair, to see their relatives
and their friends. One can see different forms of
improvised trade. The saloop salesman can be
identified within a group on the right.
Here and there we notice several huge panels
representing landscapes. It is difficult to discover
their functionality. An inscription helps: “Foto
Venetia”. The images function as a background for
the photographic cabinets in the open air. The
landscapes are conventional, but they refer to an
exotic world, which confirms the heterotypic statute
of this space.
Shops, booths, tents, stalls, smoke, rolls of dust
stirred by the crowd, cluster of dishes, pails,
pitchers, jugs, merry-go-round, the wheel of luck,
the bearded woman, the snake-man, gipsy flower
girls, the horse that counts, sensational acts, the
boa snake, photos „a la minute”, panoramas with
Cleopatra’s death and the Waterloo battle, parrots
which predict the future, calusari1, a
gipsy selling pop corn, seeds and cowries.
Piles of ginger bread, pretzels, Turkish delight,
lakoum, pails with braga2 and lemonade.
Ice-cream, nougat, halva, almonds.
Grills and sizzled mititei3, kegs with
tuica4, vine, beer.
Roars, howls, trumpets, whistles, bugles, crackers.
A striped world.
The Mosilor Fair comes out from a fakir’s hat.
1.
Romanian folk dance.
2.
Millet beer
3.
Minced meat rolls
4.
Plum brandy
