Exhibition Category: Past Exhibitions

”The scenographic installation Two in one. A story… in the white cube space of the CREART Gallery is a unique plastic experiment for its author, Octavian Neculai. The work takes as its starting point Mircea Eliade’s The Forbidden Forest, both through the motto under whose inspiration it took shape, namely the passage that evokes the power of King Midas to turn everything he touches into gold, and through the character’s hypostasis who is faced with a choice. If the existence of parallel multiverses – according to quantum physics – holds true, then basically every decision we make generates a new universe; but what happens when we choose between two choices? Two in one is the possible story not only of two brides, but, given Octavian Neculai’s biography, it can also be a story about how a creator simultaneously follows two different artistic directions: architecture and scenography. Thus situated at the interface between artistic practices and keys to reading, the visual construction offers us the opportunity for an incursion into the artist’s imagination, but also an impetus through which everyone can take the alchemical path of self-transformation.” (Ana Daniela Sultana)

”My story is about coming together through love or because of love. It began one day when I saw a wedding dress sitting on a mannequin in an open window facing the street, giving me the impression that she was talking to someone. And so I thought to myself: why wouldn’t she talk to me and together we tell a story about this theoretically once-in-a-lifetime event. What if, looking in the mirror, we could see the other side only we know? It’s about a revelation on the day we celebrate love.
It is the day when, by touching that miraculous substance, we can turn anything to gold, including dreams.
My brides – who are actually two in one – prepare for their wedding, in front of the mirror, hiding their faces and bodies behind veils to keep their love away from people’s eyes. They only partially succeed.
All around them, meanwhile, are the gifts they are about to receive from the guests already hovering above them.” (Octavian Neculai)

Octavian Neculai is a set designer and architect, associate professor at UAIM, practicing architect at ICPIL and president of Comproiect, graduate of “Ion Mincu” Institute of Architecture in Bucharest (1966). A complex personality, he has carried out numerous projects for the performing arts, remodelling and refurbishment of theatres, commercial and performance spaces, interior design, complex hotel construction, construction projects in Romania and abroad, pavilions for fairs and exhibitions. He has also signed the scenography of numerous theatre and opera performances, working alongside established names in the field, such as Liviu Ciulei, Dan Jitianu, Andrei Șerban, Alexandru Darie, Mihai Mănuțiu and Alexandru Dabija.

Ana Daniela Sultana is a curator and art columnist. She holds degrees in philology and communication, a MA in curating from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and is currently writing a PhD thesis titled “Poetics of the curatorial text”. Her articles appear in ARTA magazine, Romanian-Italian Cultural Horizons and on agentiadecarte.ro. She collaborates with institutions such as the International Cultural Centre in Krakow, the Romanian Cultural Institute in Vienna, the Austrian Cultural Forum in Bucharest, creart – the Center for Creation, Art and Tradition of Bucharest, the Literature Museum in Bucharest, the Art Museum of Timișoara, Kunsthalle Feldbach, Aluniș Art Center and with various contemporary art galleries.

Part of Design GO! | Romanian Design Week

Creart Gallery
May 14 – June 14 2023 (12 AM – 9 PM)
Free entry

Opening: 14 May 2023, 6:30 PM

The opening is preceded by a workshop designed to offer a direct insight into the artistic practice and eco-philosophy of Maia Ștefana Oprea.

Workshop: May 14 2023, 5 PM – free entry

The solo show RECONCILIATION of Maia Ștefana Oprea is concepted “a potential dialogue on the respect for history and ecological necessities of our present and future world, in which plastic meets organic matter and makes a continuous creation process unfolding, through which forms are hybridized, organically invading other materia and spaces, like a pseudo-vegetation.” (Maia Ștefana Oprea)

“RECONCILIATION is, at the same time, about the relationship between the materials used by Maia Ștefana Oprea in her works; on the one hand we have plastic and other synthetic materials, on the other hand we have plants and parts of them coming from her garden: ivy, willow, vine, walnut, roses, straw, wood, wood flour, ash.

Titled after the painting MORPHOGENETIC INDUSTRY by Maia Ștefana Oprea, the related event at AnnArt Gallery consists of a live drawing session inspired by the plants in the artist’s garden. Along this lines, Maia Ștefana Oprea presents her life project: The Garden of Ideas and the outcome of Tout- va- bien artist residencies, which she coordinates at Nucșoara, in Argeș county.” (Ana Daniela Sultana)

Maia Ștefana Oprea is a graduate of the National University of Arts in Bucharest with scholarships in France and the USA. Since 2016, she has been represented by AnnArt Gallery in Bucharest and since 2019 she has moved with her family in the village of Inotești, Prahova County. Her work has been exhibited at the International Painting Biennale in Chișinău, Vienna Contemporary, the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, the Romanian Cultural Institute in Venice, the Ruse National Art Gallery, the “Palatele Brâncovenești” Cultural Center of Mogoşoaia, the Cantacuzino Castle in Bușteni, the Ploiești Art Museum, the Constanța Art Museum, the National Literature Museum in Bucharest, the Cotroceni National Museum, as well as in numerous local and international art galleries.

Ana Daniela Sultana is a curator and art columnist. She holds degrees in philology and communication, a MA in curating from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and is currently writing a PhD thesis titled “Poetics of the curatorial text”. Her articles appear in ARTA magazine, Romanian-Italian Cultural Horizons and on agentiadecarte.ro. She collaborates with institutions such as the International Cultural Centre in Krakow, the Romanian Cultural Institute in Vienna, the Austrian Cultural Forum in Bucharest, creart – the Center for Creation, Art and Tradition of Bucharest, the Literature Museum in Bucharest, the Art Museum of Timișoara, Kunsthalle Feldbach, Aluniș Art Center and with various contemporary art galleries.

a GRIVIȚA53 project @ Galeria CREART

„The Eggs of the Grivița53 already have a prestigious touring career (they have been exhibited at MNAC, at the mall etc.), finding their place in our collective memory alongside the expression “the first theatre built together”. The context in which we are bringing them back to the public’s attention, in the spring of 2023, is not only the celebration of World Theatre Day (this is just a pretext), but especially, the importance and necessity of community solidarity now, more than ever, with the start of the construction site, since the construction per se of the theatre in Grivița 53 began on the 1st of March this year. At the same time, the exhibition “Egg with egg and brick with brick” is a prelude to a new fundraising campaign similar to the Egg Festival, in which, this time, the support on which the artists, respectively the creators, will draw or paint will be the brick itself. Based on the principle that the whole is reflected in the part and the part in the whole, the present exhibition selection is a small fragment of the forces that have been involved in the materialization of this project called “the imaginary island on which we dream of building experiences”, to quote Chris Simion-Mercurian, the visionary and initiator of the Grivița53 concept. (Ana Daniela Sultana)

“That’s what I admire about the Grivița53 project. The passion. The energy. And determination. To follow a dream. No matter how hard it is. It’s worth following their example. It’s worth helping them. Help them. Those who dare to dream. Egg by egg and brick by brick, their dream will come true. And it will make us all happy in the end.” (Cristian Mungiu)

The exhibition brings together reproductions of the 19 oversized eggs, as well as a life-size Grivița53 egg (signed by Dalina Bădescu and Cristian Mungiu) from the Egg Festival, initiated by writer and director Chris Simion-Mercurian in 2019, when leading personalities from art, sport, music, theatre and other creative industries took up the challenge of giving a unique visual identity to each egg (2m high, made of reinforced polyester and fibreglass) and turning them into works of art.

The creators who have embraced the initiative in 2019 are: Arantxa Etcvheverria, Alexandra Nechita, Francisc Chiuariu, Gheorghe Fikl, Mihai Popescu and Florin Samoilă, Oana Pellea and Mirela Trăistaru, Alex Găvan and Adina Mastalier, Valeria Van Groningen and Chris Simion-Mercurian, Horațiu Mălăele and Cristi Farcaș, Maia Morgenstern and Cabiria Morgenstern, Alexandru Tomescu and Ana Munteanu, Ivan Patzaichin and Marius Burhan, Cristian Mungiu and Dalina Bădescu, Dan Perjovschi & Band of Illustrators: Sorina Vazelina, Tuan Nini, Laurie Mouret, Irina Iliescu, Alexandru Ciubotariu (Pisica Pătrată) and Ramona Chirică, Mirela Trăistaru, Iuliana Vîlsan, Marius Manole, Vasile Murivale, Mihai Dobrovolschi and Vlad Fodor.

“Woven mostly with pink thread, the female characters in this series, and the symbols with which they are accompanied, tell their stories from a feminist perspective (herstory). Adam and Eve, Mary the Egyptian, a life-size self-portrait of Raluca Ilaria Demetrescu, which looks much like a pall or shroud, etc. are works that question Christian imagery and the status of women. More often than not, the heroines simultaneously encompass several identities, sometimes paradoxical (saint-prostitute for example, as in the case of Mary the Egyptian or Mary Magdalene), giving a measure of the complexity of female nature. Of course, we also find in this selection completely secular versions of women; however, the archetypes invoked by Raluca Ilaria Demetrescu are generally timeless and capable of offering us an open version of the narrative that the viewer can perceive and interpret according to his or her own life experience. The thread, not at all coincidentally pink, the choice of the textile medium as a medium of artistic expression (whose evolution from decorativism to the high forums of contemporary art is closely linked to the evolution of feminism), as well as the autonomous way in which her characters convey epic structures, characterize Raluca Demetrescu in her feminist approach as an artist. Similarly, in her curatorial practice, Raluca Demetrescu generates a space of inclusion and aesthetic diversity, orchestrating large-scale exhibition projects in which the voices of minorities – sexual or ethnic – can be heard.” (Ana Daniela Sultana)

Raluca Ilaria Demetrescu is a visual artist with doctoral studies in visual arts at the Sorbonne University in Paris, curator, co-founder and coordinator of the longest-running artist-run gallery in Bucharest, Alert studio (PINK CODE). Initiator of extensive collective exhibition projects, both in spaces traditionally dedicated to art and in alternative spaces, Raluca Ilaria Demetrescu produces an urban social, feminist and assertive curatorial discourse. In her artistic practice she approaches a wide range of media of expression, from painting and graphics to ceramics and textile installations, in which woven text or embroidered drawings convey a strong artistic message. Her works can be found in art collections in Romania and abroad.

Ana Daniela Sultana is a curator and publicist. She holds a degree in philology and communication sciences, a master’s degree in curatorial studies from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and she is currently working on a PhD thesis entitled “Poetics of the curatorial text”. She publishes articles in ARTA magazine, Orizonturi Culturale Italo-Române and on agentiadecarte.ro. She collaborates with institutions such as the International Cultural Centre in Krakow, ICR Vienna, the Austrian Cultural Forum Bucharest, creart – Bucharest Municipality Center for Creation, Art and Tradition, MNLR Bucharest, Timișoara Art Museum, Kunsthalle Feldbach, Aluniș Art Center and numerous contemporary art galleries.

“Usually, the artist’s name is found in a corner of their work – as a signature, it appears on labels in galleries and museums or it may be insinuated by a tag, on the wall, in the case of a mural. Taking as a reference international examples of established visual artists, with names that have already become brands, Georgian Bărbieru makes his own name the subject of the MAKE A NAME exhibition. The title uses the English expression, whose faithful correspondent in Romanian is «a-și face un nume». In this way, his name appears written in different coloured letters on different backgrounds, this repetition inspired by lettering and pop-art giving a particular cadence to the exhibition selection, while also invoking (neuro)marketing techniques, more or less subliminal, of the kind that encourage addiction to a particular brand or compulsive consumerism. Thus, although Georgian Bărbieru’s series of letter works claims – chromatically and conceptually – to be part of artistic practices found in Alighiero Boetti, Damien Hirst or Gerhard Richter, indirectly, it also refers to his earlier concerns with eco art or the human impact on the environment.” (Ana Daniela Sultana)

Georgian Bărbieru is an assistant professor at the National University of Arts in Bucharest, Faculty of Decorative Arts and Design (Department of Mural Art) and a member of the Fine Artist Union of Romania (Painting Branch Bucharest). His artistic practice is complex and is developed on two levels: on the one hand, as a teacher, he teaches mural art, on the other hand, as an artist, he experiments with painting, sculpture and installation.

Ana Daniela Sultana is a publicist and curator. Her articles are published in ARTA magazine, Orizonturi Culturale Italo-Romane and on agentiadecarte.ro. She collaborates with institutions such as the International Cultural Centre Krakow, ICR Vienna, Austrian Cultural Forum Bucharest, MNLR Bucharest, Bucharest City Museum, Timișoara Art Museum, Kunsthalle Feldbach, Aluniș Art Center, CREART Gallery and other contemporary art galleries.

“Aniela Ovadiuc’s series of white Limoges porcelain spheres probes both the spiritual and conceptual-artistic dimensions of light. They reveal a kind of exploration of consciousness as an artistic concern and remind us of the role of ceramics as a preferred medium for expressing people’s feelings, ideas and considerations over the centuries, constituting a fine indicator of the state of society from ancient civilizations to the present day. Aniela Ovadiuc harmoniously and with remarkable visual effect combines traditional and contemporary elements in her ceramic installations, taking artistic discourse and decorative art to a sophisticated level of plastic exercise while demonstrating an astonishing ability to convey complex epic structures. All the more so, the ceramic whiteness that gives the sensation of weightlessness, that invokes tabula rasa and offers us the promise of a new beginning, freed from all previous karma, tells stories deciphered through light, through vision, through the artist’s creative universe. Of course, the texture of these spheres can also lead us to think of water in its solid state (ice, snow), creating a warm-cold tension, but then turquoise comes into the balance of thermal perception, referring to oceans and seas, summer. “Through the light” is thus a subtly immersive exhibition-installation by an artist whose plastic vision relies on a synaesthetic aesthetic.” (Ana Daniela Sultana)

Aniela Ovadiuc (b. 1980, Constanta) is a visual artist, graduated from UNArte Bucharest, with a BA in ceramics and an MA in visual arts, member of UAP since 2004 and of Galateea Group since 2010. Her artistic practice is at the confluence of ceramics, object design and installation, and her exhibition activity includes, in addition to solo and group exhibitions, participation in biennials, symposia or salons dedicated to decorative arts, especially ceramics, such as the International Biennial of Ceramics (Cluj, 2019, 2022), SNAC (Bucharest, 2021), Art Deco Biennial of Decorative Arts (Bucharest, 2012), Salon of Decorative Arts (Bucharest, 2012), Romanian Contemporary Ceramics (Paris, 2010), International Ceramics Symposium “Ceramic Art Colony” (Vinica, 2010), Romanian Ceramics Today (Mogoșoaia, 2009) and Art Ceramica (Sofia, 2007).

Ana Daniela Sultana is a curator, art consultant and columnist. She has a degree in philology and communication sciences, a master’s degree in curatorial studies from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and she is currently working on her PhD thesis “Poetics of the curatorial text” at the University of Bucharest. She publishes articles in ARTA magazine, Orizonturi Culturale Italo-Române and on agentiadecarte.ro. She collaborates with institutions such as the International Cultural Centre in Krakow, ICR Vienna, the Austrian Cultural Forum Bucharest, creart, the Art Museum of Timișoara, Kunsthalle Feldbach, Aluniș Art Center and numerous contemporary art galleries.

Artist: Alexandru Cînean
& video installations developed from performances produced by creart / Teatrelli & Galateca

White Box @ Galeria CREART
17.10 – 27.11.2022

Black Box @ GALATECA
17.10 – 06.11.2022

Official opening: GALATECA / 17.10.2022 / 6.30 PM

The pandemic has marked the way we relate to everyday life, changed behaviours and generated new gestures in public and private spaces. The isolation and the restrictive measures (imposed for almost two years) have been pushed into oblivion, out of a natural desire to return to normality, but they have remained embedded in a collective memory, tacitly but recognizably manifesting themselves in the way we move in a new reality – the same and yet different, modified by the experience we have lived together, globally.

Galateca Gallery celebrates 10 years of existence this year. Paradoxically or not, the collaboration between creart/Teatrelli and Galateca has materialized precisely during the pandemic period, culminating in a performative project, a guerrilla production that was born when the theatres were closed: the performance “INT.EXT” in the Galateca windows, a show about the status of the independent artist and the role of art. A year and a half later, the performance found its answer in another performative experiment, in the showcase of the Fantom Gallery in Berlin, this time thematising the status and challenges of the producer in the performing and visual arts – “power@vulnerability.art”. They are creative exercises and experiences that have lost, through the passage of time and the return to the new reality, some of the tension, emotion, despair and joy collectively experienced at the time of their unfolding, but have left deep traces, while deepening the conviction and confidence in the power of art to reinvent itself, to adapt and find new forms of manifestation, regardless of the context. Taking the two performances as a starting point, the visual artist Alexandru Cînean translates and encapsulates in graphic language the changes in behaviour and the new gestures that have become part of the normality distorted by the experience of the pandemic.

This is not the first project in which the artist combines visual arts with theatre and performance area, starting with the exhibition “Faust: Vanity and Despair’, after the reference performance signed by Silviu Purcărete, and the presence, on several occasions, at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (FITS), most recently with the exhibition ‘Eye SB-you!”- an intervention project in public space, with eyes painted on the windows of houses in Sibiu (works made with UV and phosphorescent pigments and techniques), through which the city becomes a spectator of its own histories. Last but not least, Alexandru Cînean has started a doctoral research in which he aims to analyse how visual arts and theatre have influenced each other throughout the history and evolution of art.

Exhibition within neo art connect

#humans

Anca Boeriu and her humans… thinkers and flyers, whole silhouettes or just details, in groups or solitary, sometimes even without references to gender or identity. Because it’s about the essence of the human being: a touch, a hug, an attitude…

In the context of isolation, mistrust and panic generated by the pandemic, these are the gestures that we have probably missed the most, because they relate to the intrinsic human needs: that of being together and of interacting emotionally through body language. These are the values that Anca Boeriu’s artistic universe encapsulates in shapes, lines or dots, keeping the essence of the human being in a zone of empathy, apart from the tragic or morbid. These are the needs and values of which we are perhaps more aware today than ever before. Synthesized, they can be translated simply into… human nature. #human

Anca Boeriu was born in 1957 in Pucioasa and graduated from the National University of Visual Arts in Bucharest (UNARTE) in 1982. She is a Phd lecturer at UNARTE, in the Graphic Design department, where she has been teaching for 21 years. She is a member of the Romanian Union of Visual Artists – UAP (since 1999) and President of the Bucharest Print Section (since 2016), founding member of the International Association “Friends of the National Art Museum of Romania”, member of the International Association MitOst Germany, Romania’s delegate at the Chamallier Print Triennial (France), and since 2014 he is the initiator and coordinator of the Bucharest International Print Biennale (BIPB).

Her artistic and curatorial activity is extensive, including major exhibitions in Romania and abroad. She designs projects for her students and for the community. During her artistic career she has received a number of important awards and distinctions, among the most recent: the UAP Award for Curating (in 2017), the Graphic Design Award (in 2014), etc.

So many times we pass by objects that seem to lack any importance and aesthetic value, and yet, under the “light” of imagination, they can be transformed into stars. Just as every star, however different, can become part of a fascinating galaxy.

This is how WOOBA – a sustainable Romanian brand based on the principles of the circular economy – was born in 2020, in the middle of a pandemic year. Their design products (mainly lighting fixtures) are created from recycled wood rods and joints made by 3D printing technology and transformed into urban, geometric objects, designed to satisfy the latest trends in taste and style.

The installation “Piece by Piece… Into the Light” aims to portray, in the form of a visual metaphor, the whole process of metamorphosing a piece of recycled wood into a micro-galaxy.

Part of DESIGN GO

An exhibition about inner dialogues, questions, answers and bare thoughts.

The exhibition mirrors the bonds between mother and daughter, interrogating the transgenerational legacies that accompany them.

The exhibition was built around meetings between mother-daughter pairs and photographer Bogdan Dincă, together with actors Denisa Nicolae and Liviu Romanescu. The starting point of the discussions were the thoughts that the daughter or mother expressed in a letter addressed to the other.

From 7th of March, throughout the month, the works in the Mother/Daughter exhibition will be presented according to the following schedule:

• 07-10.03 (M-T): Ana-Doina | Ella-Gabriela
• 11-13.03 (F-S): Ioana-Manuela | Denisa-Gilda
• 14-17.03 (M-T): Mara-Monica | Roxana-Lenuța
• 18-20.03 (F-S): Alexandra-Carmen | Corina-Vasilina
• 21-24.03 (M-T): Sorina-Viorica | Alina-Marinela
• 25-27.03 (F-S): Anca-Adriana | Simona-Adela
• 28-31.03 (M-T): Carina-Anda | Georgiana-Luminița

The 14 portraits are accompanied by audio excerpts from the meetings. Laura Ionescu completes the portrait of her mother with a series of memories that belong to the “My mother is just words” universe.

Photographer: Bogdan Dincă

Coordinators: Denisa Nicolae and Liviu Romanescu

Music: Mihai Dobre

Exhibited by Vanner Collective

Special thanks to: Adi Bulboacă, Liviu Chițu, 4 Teen Art Association

Bogdan Dincă is a photojournalist, interested in social issues and exploring how we function as individuals and society. He is co-founder of the Documentaria group, and his photographs have been published by DoR, Scena9, Libertatea, Inclusiv, Școala9, Hotnews.

“My mother is just words” –  Laura Ionescu In this heart, the mother’s voice is heard without being heard. Laura Ionescu reconstructs her mother from fragments of conversations and questions that will never be answered, just to show that time can neither defeat love nor take away its strength. This experience – about loss, but more about remembering – is inspired by the memoir „I can’t find you anywhere”, published by Publica.

Vanner Collective is a creative collective founded in 2015 with a mission to grow innovative ideas and projects, speaking to people through challenging, fresh and current artistic experiences. They choose disruptive themes, isolating the human story and pushing it to the rawest and most honest point possible. They want to challenge their audience to become part of the community of those in a continuous process of discovery and growth.