Radio România Internațional

Category: World of Culture

  • The 2024 Gopo Awards

    The 2024 Gopo Awards

    The 18th edition of the Gopo Awards Gala, which aimed to celebrate the performances recorded by Romanian cinema in recent years, was held at the National Theatre, I. L. Caragiale” from Bucharest. “Liberty”, directed by Tudor Giurgiu, was the production that collected 10 Gopo statuettes, the most this year, including the award for best feature film. “Don’t expect too much from the end of the world” by Radu Jude, a film acclaimed by the international press, awarded with the Silver Leopard – Special Jury Prize at Locarno, Romania’s proposal for the Academy Awards 2024, won only two awards: the Screenplay Award, shared with “Liberty”, the favorite of this year’s Gopo Awards, and the Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, which went to Ilinca Manolache. One of the most valuable actresses in Romania, Rodica Mandache, was honored at the Gala with the Gopo Lifetime Achievement Award. Among the most recent roles performed by Rodica Mandache on the big screens is Puzzle (directed by Andrei Zincă, 2012), where she plays alongside actors Dan Nuţu, Adrian Titieni and Ioana Pavelescu. In 2020, Rodica Mandache starred alongside István Téglás, Mădălina Craiu and Andi Vasluianu in the film “Luca”, directed by Horațiu Mălăele. For her role in this film, Rodica Mandache received the Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role from the Union of Romanian Cinematographers. Rodica Mandache was one of the most loved actresses of the National Theater in Bucharest and the Odeon Theatre, where she played in numerous shows. Actor Marius Manole was the one who handed her the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 18th edition of the Gopo Awards Gala. Here is Rodica Mandache:

    “For me, for my generation and for the hundreds of students you had, who are now great actors on the country’s stages, you are the best benchmark that keeps the balance straight. You are the man who gives us courage, you are the man who shows us that energy never dies. You show us that when you perform in a show, even though you may seem like a leaf in the wind when you enter the stage, you become a mountain of power. In the moments when it’s hard for me and you take my hand everything becomes easier. Unfortunately, we no longer have the curiosity that you kept and it would be good to learn it again. You show us that you are willing to learn from anyone, listen to anyone and talk to anyone. Six decades of work, six decades of life truly devoted to this fascinating and beautiful job, which all of us here love. The most important advice I received from Rodica Mandache is the following: times are always hard, the season is always poor, but the public must never be deceived.”

    Actor Dan Nuțu’s career spanning over five decades was rewarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 18th edition of the Gopo Awards Gala. The filmmaker is known for his memorable performances in “Sunday at 6” (directed by Lucian Pintilie, 1965), “Meander” (directed by Mircea Săucan, 1966), “The mornings of a good boy” (directed by Andrei Blaier, 1966), “100 lei ” (directed by Mircea Săucan, 1973) and “Beyond the sands” (directed by Radu Gabrea, 1974), as well as for the documentary productions made within the Aristoteles Workshop program, which he founded in 2006. With a rebellious attitude and often compared to James Dean or Tom Courtenay, Dan Nuțu abruptly interrupted his career at the end of the 70s to emigrate to the USA, returning to the country after the 2000s. Together with producer Cristina Hoffman, Dan Nuțu founded Aristoteles Workshop in 2006, a film workshop documentary dedicated to artists from around the world. To date, this project has produced more than 40 films, many of which have been selected and awarded at prestigious festivals. Actress Oana Pellea was the one who handed Dan Nuțu the Lifetime Achievement Award.

    “I want to thank Tudor Giurgiu for giving me the opportunity to speak in public about a great love of my life. A man whom the camera adored and adores. A man who at one point chose freedom, leaving an exceptional career behind. A man to whom God gave charm and beauty. I feel sorry for the new generations, who didn’t have the chance to fall in love with him. If I had immigrated to America at some point, I would have immigrated for him. I hadn’t discovered De Niro yet.”

    The award for Young Hope was awarded to Niko Becker for the role of Dumitru in the film “Towards the North”. The production won another prize, Best Cinematography Award, which went to George Chiper-Lillemark. “Between the Revolutions”, directed by Vlad Petri, was designated the Best Documentary. In the short film category, the Gopo award went to the film “Where the boats don’t reach”, directed by Vlad Buzăianu.

  • Horia, the debut feature of Ana-Maria Comănescu

    Horia, the debut feature of Ana-Maria Comănescu

    “Horia” is the title of Ana-Maria Comănescu’s debut feature film, which has recently been premiered in cinema halls across Romania. The film premiered at world level in November 2023, on the sidelines of the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. Romanian audiences could watch the film for the first time at the Films de Cannes à Bucarest Film Festival, a selection of films premiered at Cannes Film Festival, in the Premiers of the Fall competition, where it won the Public Award. A road and coming-of-age movie, using a script written by Ana-Maria Comănescu herself, the film tells the story of Horia, an 18-year-old teenager in a Romanian village, who falls in love with a girl on the other side of the world. After an argument with his father, Horia makes an impulsive gesture and leaves home, taking his father’s old motorcycle. On the road he meets Stela, a clever little girl, and the two are forced by circumstances to travel together and overcome a series of obstacles. Before Horia, Ana-Maria Comănescu directed three shorts (In the House, Te mai uiți și la om and Pipa, sexul si omleta), each obtaining various awards and selections in student and international film festivals as well as two nominations at the Gopo Awards. With every film, Ana-Maria Comănescu tried to get out of her comfort zone and take risks. She did the same with Horia, picking Vladimir Țeca and Angelina Pavel, two debutante actors, for the main roles. The two cross the country on a Mobra motorcycle manufactured in Romania in the 1970s. Ana-Maria Comănescu told us more.

     

     

    “I also did a road movie in college, but then the characters drove a car, not a motorbike, that’s why it was a little simpler, technically speaking. I love this kind of shooting where you’re always on the go, moving from one place to the next. It’s complicated, indeed, but it’s also fun, and you’re left with a crazy but lovely experience. From the beginning, I wanted my debut film to be a road movie. It’s one of my favorite genres, and it’s always a pleasure to play with a genre that is already out there, because you can spice it up with all kinds of elements from other genres. So, initially, we started from this idea of ​​making a road movie. Then I thought about the transformation Horia, the main character, undergoes during his journey. Because it is obvious that, at first, Horia is less mature compared to the end of the film. This trip, which lasts no more than a week, succeeds in making him a man. And I found this aspect of the story very interesting to explore: the fact that Horia leaves his village located somewhere in Dobrogea for the first time, thinking that this journey will be a short one, that it would last a day at most. But his journey is an initiation, a journey that turns out to be much longer and more complicated than he had anticipated. And, very importantly, once he leaves his village, Horia discovers the world for the first time. Which is precisely what I wanted viewers to discover together with him, to somehow accompany him on this journey so important for him. As I said before, the film also appeals to nostalgia and I think that through Horia we can also relive that period, the period in which we make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. I think most of us have done crazy things in our teens, taken risks when we were in love and hoped that our love was reciprocated. I thought Horia’s story is one that many of us can relate to”.

     

     

    Ana-Maria Comănescu, the screenwriter and director of Horia, told us what prompted her to cast Vladimir Țeca and Angelina Pavel as the male and female leads and how she built the relationship between the characters:

     

     

    “I worked on this script for many years, I rewrote it many times and it became clear to me that the Horia-Stela relationship is, in fact, the backbone of this film. It is the relationship with Stela that helps Horia change and embark on his transformational journey. That’s why it was important for the story that there were some differences between the two, that they somehow completed each other. Whereas Horia is an introverted and anxious character, scared of the world around himself, Stela is the opposite. She is open, very flexible, she can adapt to any situation. And I think each of the characters learns something from the other. In addition, I really wanted not to fall into the trap of a romantic plot. That’s why I chose to make the age difference between Horia and Stela still significant. And a thirteen-year-old girl like Stela can often be a lot more mature than an eighteen-year-old boy like Horia”.

     

     

    Liviu Cheloiu, Daniela Nane, Mihaela Velicu, Dragoș Olaru and Robert Onofrei are also cast in the film. The film was shot in spectacular areas in Romania, which the public will have the opportunity to discover from a fresh perspective. (VP)

     

  • The “Pavel Obreja and Hanna Kozeletska’s Exhibition”

    The “Pavel Obreja and Hanna Kozeletska’s Exhibition”

    The two protagonists of this joint exhibition are sculptor Pavel Obreja, of the Republic of Moldova and Ukrainian, Hanna Kozeletska. A presentation of the aforementioned exhibition in Bucharest has been made by art critic Marius Tița.

    Marius Tita:” Pavel Obreja is modeling portraits, he is modeling faces. He has brought Brancusi to Bucharest, one of the best portraits I have ever seen. Next was the statue of Eminescu. A small bronze statue forged with his own hands by a young man who has just celebrated his 33rd anniversary.”

    Here is sculptor Pavel Obreja with more on this exhibition entitled April

    Pavel Obreja: ”I’ve come here from the south of the Republic of Moldova. I came to Bucharest with an exhibition entitled “April”. It’s a joint exhibition of mine and my wife’s, Hanna. Why April and why Bucharest? Because I met Hanna in Bucharest in April. And we came here with 22 pieces of sculpture and Hanna brought 42 paintings.”

    But what attracts Pavel Obreja to this sculpture technique?

    Pavel Obreja: ”Mostly I like to show through sculpture how the shadow plays within the volume. This is what I like the most in a sculpture. When we watch a painting for instance, we are only seeing it from an angle. A sculpture makes us move around and see how the shadows play.”

    Sculptor Pavel Obreja is making a description of his artistic education:

    Pavel Obreja: ”I started to do modeling as early as the college, I graduated from the Chisinau-based „Alexandru Plămădeală” college. After that I got a degree from the Academy of Music and Fine Arts also in Chișinău, then the PhD in sculpture. I am very much into modeling portraits, you know, because in this way I can see, how the biggest sculptor, who is Mother-Nature is working on a man’s face. The changes that I see on a man’s face over the years are made by Mother-Nature and I try to transpose what nature has created.”

    Pavel Obreja has also talked to us about the technique he employs while creating bronze sculptures:

    Pavel Obreja: ”The technique is very complicated and time-consuming. But I very much like the fact that I am doing everything from scratch by myself, from the beginning to the end of the sculpture. And I put all my knowledge into the process, of course.”

    The sculptor has also shared his opinion about the Ukrainian painter Hanna Kozeletska, his wife.

    Pavel Obreja:” First Hanna Kozeletska is my wife and also my favourite painter. I hope her art is also appreciated by others as she works in a very special manner. And in her works one can easily notice the school of Kharkiv and Kyiv, as she does both easel and monumental painting. And by combining these two styles, some special effects are obtained.”   

    In the end of our discussion, Pavel Obreja has also confessed about the latest work in the exhibition in Bucharest, the central piece we could say: a portrait of the Romanian painter of international repute, Constantin Brâncuși, a portrait entirely worked in bronze. 

    Pavel Obreja:” This portrait has an interesting history, in my opinion. I kicked off this project in Kyiv, while doing my PhD studies, the second PhD. At that time I was seeing what I could call a creation crisis. I started modeling this portrait as I wanted to have one with Brancusi as he was a great sculptor himself, you know. Then I got a couple of orders, so that activity created more activities to say. Then I had to take a break, as I had to deal with some school issues, then war broke out in Ukraine so we had to go. That Brancusi in its first stage, a clay work, remained for a while at the workshop in Kyiv. Then I came back and took it to the Republic of Moldova, where I completed it with fresh powers, so to say. Everything went smoothly with this project and eventually I completed it easily as I saw in it some sort of a sculpture god. I didn’t want to create it like a god or something, but everything with this project went smoothly in that direction, you know… ”

    (bill)

  • Solo Show – Eugen Raportoru

    Solo Show – Eugen Raportoru

    In April and May, between the Catholic and Orthodox Easter, CREART Gallery in Bucharest has played host to an exhibition by the visual artist Eugen Raportoru entitled Resurrection and curated by Daniela Sultana. The colour palette of the works on show, the artist’s usual greys, alongside subtle components, point to an artist with a complex personality. Curator Daniela Sultana explained at the opening of the exhibition:

    “Welcome to the opening of the solo exhibition by the visual artist Eugen Raportoru, at CREART, the Centre for Creation, Art and Tradition of the City of Bucharest. As we’ve already accustomed our public, at least for the last year, we are trying to link the theme of the exhibition to various holidays or to special times of the year. The current exhibition is dedicated to the Easter holidays and is held between the Catholic and Orthodox Easter. It’s in the form of an installation, in line with the gallery’s exhibition programme. It consists of three large paintings, each of which depicts a cross, like in the Bible, in Christ’s crucifixion on Golgotha along with the two thieves. It’s a sombre scene, taking its inspiration from the Bible and the presentation of the works reflects this. While previous installations consisted of a great number of exhibits and were very colourful, this exhibition is monochromatic and minimalist: only three works, in three colours: white, black and grey.”

    At the opening of the exhibition, to complement the spirit of the exhibition, the gallery was imbued with the smell of incense, designed as a purifying olfactory ingredient. Curator Daniela Sultana says this was all part of the concept:

    “The olfactory element was proposed by the artist to complement the artistic concept. He’s staged some legendary exhibitions in the past, one of which was purchased by the Museum of Contemporary Art, another was staged by the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, at the Peasant Museum in Bucharest and the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale. This project is in line with Eugen Raportoru’s artistic practice which sees him oscillating between painting, which is the medium for which he became known, with its signature colour palette, his emblematic greys, and installation art.”

    Daniela Sultana, the curator of the Resurrection exhibition also made a short presentation of Eugen Raportoru’s artistic career:

    “Trying to make a presentation of Eugen Raportoru as a visual artist, we can start by saying that this year he was awarded by the president of Romania with the Cultural Merit Order. He graduated from the Arts University, where he got his bachelor’s degree and a masters degree. He has been a member of the Union of Fine Artists since 2010. He is a many-time recipient of the Union’s award for painting and is a very active artist who exhibits a lot, both in solo and group shows, at biennales, salons, local art fairs like Art Safari and the Contemporary Art Salon, at the Romanian Peasant Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art. He has also displayed his works abroad, at the Royal Art Academy in London, at the Vatican under the UNESCO aegis, the Ethnic Museum in Oslo, and in Stockholm. In Romania, his work has been displayed in most museums across the country, including the Bucharest City Museum, the Pavel Șușară Museum for Contemporary and Modern Art, at the Brukenthal in Sibiu, at the Art Museum in Galati, the Art in Museum in Constanta, in Targu Jiu, at the Gorj County Museum and in many contemporary art centres and galleries.”

    Curator Daniela Sultana also made a summary of other projects she is working on and which will go on show at CREART Gallery:

    “CREART will also host an event as part of the Romanian Design Week, an installation by Dorin Negrău, a Romanian fashion designer with an international career. After that we will host solo exhibitions with a note of installation art, given the size of our gallery. Internationally, we will be staging an exhibition at the Romanian Institute of Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice.”

  • The Case of Engineer Ursu, a documentary about the quest for justice

    The Case of Engineer Ursu, a documentary about the quest for justice

     

    For more than 30 years, Andrei Ursu has been trying to shed light on the death of his father, Gheorghe Ursu, who died in custody while being detained by the Securitate, the communist secret police, after he criticised Nicolae Ceaușescu’s decision to halt the consolidation works of the buildings affected by the earthquake of 1977. Directed by Liviu Tofan and Șerban Georgescu, The Case of Engineer Ursu is a heart-wrenching documentary about the quest for justice and was recently launched in Romanian cinemas. Liviu Tofan, who co-directed The Case of Engineer Ursu, is a film-maker and journalist who worked for two decades for the Romanian department of Radio Free Europe. He explained that the film tells in fact two stories:

     

    “The title of the film, The Case of Engineer Ursu, follows the two Ursu engineers, father and son. Theirs are emblematic stories: that of Gheorghe Ursu for communist Romania in the 1980s and that of Andrei Ursu for Romania today, having fought in courts for 30 years to see that his father gets justice. Both stories begin with the earthquake of 1977, and one is about the failure of communist Romania, the other about the failure of the justice system in democratic Romania. Unfortunately, the second story, that of Andrei Ursu, is just as hopeless as that of Gheorghe Ursu. 35 years since the Revolution and we’re still waiting for a fair sentence in the case of the dissident Gheorghe Ursu, fair not only from a legal point of view, but also in a historical sense. Both Gheorghe and Andrei Ursu have extraordinary strength of character and are great raw models for us tody. The film revolves around them. Gheorghe Ursu was killed by the communist police and the Securitate because he refused to accept any form of compromise during the inquiry, and that’s something we know from the archive of the Securitate. He categorically refused to implicate his friends and paid the price. He is a raw model of honour and integrity and never renounced his principles. And his son is a man who is sacrificing his life for an ideal. Andrei Ursu twice put his life in danger going on a hunger strike for what he believes in, and which is more important to him than his life. That’s the strength of the film: the strength of these two raw models.”

     

    The documentary film was screened last summer, a few days before the High Court of Cassation and Justice announced its final sentence. Despite the carefully constructed case, the defendants were acquitted, and the film remains the only form of justice and recognition the dissident Gheorghe Ursu will ever enjoy. Liviu Tofan, the co-director of the film:

     

    “A large section of the film is dedicated to Andrei Ursu’s struggle with the justice system. The film follows chronologically the difficulties and obstacles he encountered since 1990, in various forms: delays, rejections, prescription, and lots more. After 1990, one of the two men accused of Gheorghe Ursu’s death, Vasile Hodiș, was no longer a Securitate officer, but he did work with the Romanian Intelligence Service, so he was still in the system, that same system that constantly fought Andrei Ursu. In 2000, Andrei Ursu went on hunger strike for the first time. The authorities realised he was willing to go all the way and handed the case over to the prosecutor Dan Voinea, who continued the investigation. Andrei Ursu went on hunger strike for the second time in October 2014, when the case had again reached a deadlock. The authorities again gave in, and the fact that elections were being held that year may have had something to do with it. Everything he had been denied was suddenly accepted. That’s when the two former Securitate officers Marin Pârvulescu and Vasile Hodiș were indicted for the first time. Until 2014, the system simply refused to investigate two officers of the former Securitate.”

     

    Produced by Kolectiv Film together with the Gheorghe Ursu Foundation, Victoria Film, Follow Art Association and the Romanian Television, the documentary was already screened in 2023 as part of special events, at various cinemas across Bucharest and at film festivals around the country.

  • Romania at the London Book Fair 2024

    Romania at the London Book Fair 2024

    35 years after the Romanian Revolution, the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) celebrated freedom in all its creative forms, at a new edition of the London Book Fair. Under the motto “Voices of Freedom”, Romania’s participation in this year’s edition of the London Book Fair, one of the largest events devoted to professionals in the literary field, was dedicated to all generations of local writers who have created in an epoch of full freedom of speech. The Romanian Cultural Institute prepared a program of events that included book launches, conferences and spoken word performances, which took place at the ICR stand at the fair, the ICR London headquarters, the Barbican library and Conway Hall.

     

    Eli Bădică, the coordinator and initiator of the collection of contemporary Romanian literature by Nemira Editorial Group, spoke to us about Romania’s participation in the London Book Fair from her perspective as a publisher: “A fair like this is also accessible to the public, but it is not a book sale fair. It is not a fair similar to those held in Romania, within which many events and launches take place, it is an event dedicated especially to literary agents, publishers, cultural managers and translators, to literary and commercial networking. It is an important fair for me and my colleagues, who are active in this industry, it is the second largest fair after Frankfurt in terms of importance worldwide. That’s why they are somehow strategically scheduled, in spring and autumn, because they are the fairs where translation rights are usually bought. Returning to Romania’s presence at this edition of the fair, part of the events took place at the headquarters of the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, and another two events took place in libraries, some splendid spaces. Romanian writers, literary critics and cultural managers were present and participated in some very interesting discussions. Also, the few recently published translations from Romanian into English were also presented. And during these events, a discussion was brought up that only 3% of the Anglo-Saxon book market is represented by translations.I’m saying this to understand how difficult this mission of publishers is, to try to find publishing houses for Romanian writers in this space, where English dominates the book market. I had some meetings in London with translators, editors and agents really interested in what Romanian writers write. What very few people know is that usually the editorial plans that are made in this space are considering very few writers from the East, sometimes only one in an editorial year. So, you have to try to convince the publisher, translator or the agent that that writer from Eastern Europe deserves to be a Romanian writer.”

     

     

    Participation in this edition of the London Book Fair opened with an event dedicated to the voices of female writers from Romania and Great Britain. One of the writers who participated in that debate was Elena Vlădăreanu, the initiator and coordinator of the “Sofia Nădejde” Prize, awarded to contemporary Romanian writers.

     

    Elena Vlădăreanu: “One of the writers participating in this discussion was Alina Purcaru. Alina Purcaru is also the coordinator, together with Paula Erizanu, of the three-volume anthology ‘A century of Romanian poetry written by women’ published by the Cartier publishing house. It is a very important anthology because Alina and Paula have collected a century of Romanian poetry, selecting and managing to bring in the spotlight writers that many people have not even heard of. Two very interesting writers and philosophers from Great Britain, with very rich work and PhDs in philosophy, Suzannah Lipscomb and Hannah Dawson, also participated in the same discussion. Suzannah Lipscomb is a specialist in history and has recently initiated a prize for non-fiction literature, which complements the prize already being granted in the UK for fiction. This prize which she initiated is called the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction. At the debate organized by ICR London, Suzannah Lipscomb said she came up with the idea of the award after noticing that references in the academia were mostly to texts and research written by men. In this way, she thought of highlighting these non-fiction texts written by women and that is why she initiated the award, which this year will be granted for the first time. In turn, Hannah Dawson, a specialist in the philosophy of language, has recently published an anthology at Penguin entitled The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing. To compile this anthology, Dawson went through at least 100 years of literature written by women. She was interested, first of all, in finding those unknown texts that address feminist themes. And she was surprised to find very old texts, texts even more than 100 years old, which addressed in a very contemporary way feminist themes, such as equality, the right to education, the social status of women, the relationships that women have within the family as well as within society.”

     

    Mădălina Căuneac, Liliana Corobca, Cosmin Perța, Florentin Popa, Maria Stadnicka, Matei Vișniec, Marius Chivu, Bogdan Crețu, Alex Ciorogarand, Susan Curtis, Iulian Morar, Gabi Reigh and Milena Deleva are on the list of participants attending the events organized by the Romanian Cultural Institute in London as part of the London Book Fair. (LS)

  • Romania’s participation in the Venice Biennale

    Romania’s participation in the Venice Biennale

    “What Work Is” is the selected project that will represent Romania at the 60th edition of the International Art Exhibition – Venice Art Biennale / La Biennale di Venezia. The project belongs to the artist Șerban Savu and will be presented in the Romanian Pavilion in the Giardini della Biennale and in the New Gallery of the Romanian Institute of Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice from April 20 to November 24, 2024. The theme of the project proposed by Șerban Savu is the relationship between work and spare time.

    Șerban Savu is a visual artist who lives and works in Cluj (north-west Romania), a graduate of the Art University in Cluj, a realistic painter who captures daily life and contemporary existence in Romania, focusing on themes related to work and pleasure. The Venice Biennale project is curated by the artist Ciprian Mureșan, a workshop colleague and collaborator of Șerban Savu.

    The artist Șerban Savu will tell us next about the project that will represent Romania:

    “‘What Works Is’ is the title of a poem by Philip Levine, a poet who was concerned with work and asked himself questions about what work is and answered in an absolutely admirable way. I found myself in his poems. It’s no coincidence that my 2018 book is built around five Philip Levine poems about work. I have been working on this topic or I have been interested in this topic for quite some time. In a way, I saw it through the lens of art history, looking at pre-89 propaganda art, which still stayed with us and still exists today, but not so visibly. And, as Ciprian said, we don’t know how to relate to it for now. Too little time has passed to have a relaxed or objective attitude. We are too subjective. And so, we approached the theme of work, trying to understand who we really are today. But with the help of art, of art history.”

    So what will visitors be able to see? Șerban Savu:

    “The Central Pavilion will feature a large polyptych containing over 40 paintings. This wall of paintings will be complemented by a structure of plinths on which four models will be exhibited, scale models of emblematic buildings with mosaic insertions. And, at the New Gallery of the Romanian Cultural Institute, we will be creating, over the course of seven months, a large mosaic consisting of a picnic scene, a leisure scene and a Labour Day scene in which everyone is free to spend this day as they like, with no propaganda implications.”

    Șerban Savu explains why he chose the polyptych, which is a kind of panel painting, to exhibit his work:

    “It’s a canonical form. I look at reality and everything around me through the filter of art history, and the polyptych, which is a form of religious art, helps me look at ideology. Before, work was part of the official art and propaganda art and was a fundamental component of society. Now things are naturally different and I was curious to see how today’s world can find its independence and elude the productive systems and find its autonomy. Work naturally implies a state of alienation, especially working abroad, alienation felt by those who leave their countries to work abroad and by those who return after a long time spent abroad to a reality they now feel estranged from.”

    Ciprian Mureșan, who is the curator of the project, gave us more details about the theme and inspiration of the project and the relationship between the two artists who designed it:

    “Artists have a special relationship with work. I am an artist by profession myself, not a curator, I am sharing a studio with Șerban, and work for us artists is being in the studio from morning till evening, and working without necessarily having any results. Of course, some artists can be more bohemian. We started by selecting the works. We reached an agreement quite quickly, because we are on the same wavelength, what with sharing a studio. We’re both intuitive. We moved quickly and reached a conclusion.”

    Ciprian Mureșan describes the elements of the exhibition in the Biennale and tells us more about Șerban Savu:

    “Șerban Savu is a painter by training. Around 2008-2009, he began experimenting with mosaic art. He used to love old Roman and Greek mosaics. So the exhibition will bring together a selection of paintings made between 2005 and 2024, 45 of them, displayed in a polyptych, which is a kind of altarpiece, let’s say, in a kind of dialogue with Venice.”

    To end, let us also hear from Romania’s commissioner for the Venice Biennale, Ioana Ciocan, who spoke about the selection of the projects and this year’s winning entry:

    “I must say that the Romanian pavilion at the Venice Biennale never goes unnoticed. This year, there will be almost 90 countries with national pavilions and Romania is lucky to have had its own pavilion in the Giardini de la Biennale ever since 1938. Romania has always sent important artists to Venice and I’d like to mention some of them: from Nicolae Grigorescu and Ștefan Luchian to Henry Mavrodin, Geta Brătescu and, more recently, Adrian Ghenie. I’m sure this year’s exhibition will be a success with visitors, who will no doubt find scenes that are very familiar to them. I believe more artists and more curators should apply for the Biennale. It’s true that the competition is always close, but they should all make an effort and send in their applications to be assessed by a jury. It’s a difficult process, especially for the members of the jury, who come from both home and abroad. It’s a difficult process because there’s a great responsibility, the project will represent the country.”

  • The Exhibition “Femininity and motherhood in prehistory”

    The Exhibition “Femininity and motherhood in prehistory”

    The month of March marks the beginning of spring and the celebration of femininity, these being the international symbols associated with this month. The National History Museum of Romania (MNIR), in the historical center of Bucharest, celebrated the month of March with a very special exhibition. Its curator, the archaeologist and museographer Andreea Bîrzu, told us about this exhibition:

    “In March, the National History Museum of Romania celebrates women through a new temporary exhibition: ‘Femininity and motherhood in prehistory. Neo-Eneolithic anthropomorphic plastic representations from the museum collection. An exhibition that we especially dedicated to all ladies and young ladies.”

    Andreea Birzu also explained the curatorial concept behind this exhibition hosted by the National History Museum of Romania.

    “The curatorial project offers the public the extraordinary opportunity to learn the story of some of the most spectacular artefacts from this remote period in human history. The exhibition discourse is structured around exceptional archaeological cultural assets from the museum’s collection of prehistoric objects, miniature embodiments of female shapes, vessels and statuettes that have lasted more than 6,000 years. Expressive, with a great emotional and symbolic impact, many of these anthropomorphic representations are true masterpieces of prehistoric art.”

    Curator Andreea Bîrzu gave us more details about the prehistoric artifacts on display at the National History Museum of Romania:

    “Of great diversity in shape, decoration and artistic achievement, the statuettes and vessels depict female characters in various poses. Perhaps the most impressive, the one that prompts the viewer to reflect, is that of motherhood, suggested by anatomical details carefully chosen and modelled by the prehistoric craftsmen. The breasts and the pubic triangle are visible, just like the protruding abdomen. Often, these pieces have an elaborate decoration, with geometric or spiral designs, inlaid on the surface of the body, suggesting elements of clothing, ornaments, hairstyles or even tattoos.”

    We asked Andreea Birzu which was in her opinion the item that impressed visitors the most.

    “Perhaps the most impressive representation of the female figure is that of motherhood, suggested by carefully chosen and modeled anatomical details. … The figurine of the mother with the child on her chest, discovered at Rast, in Dolj county, in southwest Romania, is perhaps the most relevant.”

    But what these arfecats meant to the prehistoric people? Andreea Birzu explained:

    “These artifacts give us particularly valuable information about the development of the community, about the beliefs, concerns and ideals of people in the distant past. They illustrate aesthetic and religious canons specific to the Neo-Eneolithic world, understood as expressions of reality, of aspects of daily life, of women’s identity, or as representations of divinities, of fecundity and fertility, or as objects of worship. The existence of these artifacts is closely related to the spiritual life of prehistoric societies, depicting through symbolic images the values ​​and principle of femininity. Femininity and motherhood were certainly sources of complex meanings for the prehistoric man, which remain rooted in the collective consciousness of modern people.”

    The exhibition hosted by the National History Museum of Romania was received with interest by the audience, Andreea Birzu told us:

    “The reaction of the visitors who see these objects, some of them for the first time, is very interesting. Most of them told me that they were delighted by the expressiveness of these pieces, by their ability to attract and hold their gaze like a magnet. Some have also said that they were amazed by the extraordinary power of abstraction of the prehistoric artisans, who managed to render with simple, rudimentary means the essence of femininity which they transposed in these figures of clay and bone.”

  • The Exhibition “Victor Brauner, between the oneiric and the occult”

    The Exhibition “Victor Brauner, between the oneiric and the occult”

    The exhibition “Victor Brauner. Between the oneiric and the occult” is hosted by the National Gallery of the National Art Museum of Romania until April 30, 2024. Opened on December 1, 2023, the exhibition emphasises the originality, grounded in domestic sources, of Victor Brauner’s works as well as his contribution to the surrealist movement started one hundred years ago.

    The exhibition presents, through more than 100 exhibits, the initial sources of the artist’s creation, stemming from the traditional spirituality and his interest in the occult and esoteric practices, as well as the evolution of his artistic means towards a surrealist aesthetic.

    Călin Stegerean, the director of the museum, is the one who designed the concept of the exhibition:

    Călin Stegerean: “The exhibition presents works by the artist and objects that we borrowed from the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum in Bucharest and which aim to reflect the artist’s inclination towards the oneiric and the occult. In fact, a lot of biographical sources speak of this sensitivity and the way in which it was translated into his paintings and beyond. Because our exhibition also has an important component represented by graphic works, drawings, works in watercolour and gouache, but also engravings, which, just like his paintings, are excellent. There are works that belong to the National Art Museum of Romania, but also works that I borrowed from the Pompidou Centre in Paris, from the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Saint-Etienne, also from the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg, as well as from the Museum of Visual Art in Galati and the Tara Crisurilor Museum in Oradea. I think we managed to bring so many works because the project of the exhibition was convincing, as it’s something quite new in the international landscape of museography. In recent years, there have been several exhibitions dedicated to this artist, including the one organized in 2023 in Timișoara, which was a European Capital of Culture, but none presented the artist’s creation on these coordinates, which are essential to his work, the oneiric and the occult. Moreover, there are many works signed by him in Romania, so it was an opportunity for collectors to present them to the general public. The exhibition also includes avant-garde magazines and books signed by the artist, from the National Library of Romania, the Metropolitan Library of Bucharest and the Lucian Blaga Central University Library in Cluj-Napoca. Also, unpublished documents related to the séances organized by Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu, which we brought from the National Archives of Romania.”

    Victor Brauner was born in 1903, in Piatra Neamț. After moving to Viena and Brăila, in 1918 his family came to Bucharest, where Victor Brauner attended the Fine Arts School. The year 1923 saw his first contact with the avantgarde movement, with the young artist becoming a contributor for some of the country’s leading avantgarde magazines, such as Contimporanul, Punct, Integral, Unu, Urmuz, and taking part in major group exhibitions together with Marcel Iancu, M.H. Maxy, Hans Mattis-Teutsch, Milița Petrașcu.

    In 1932 he joined the surrealist movement spearheaded by André Breton and took part in several exhibitions of this group. In 1938 he moved to Paris, never to return to Romania, and grappled with various problems during World War II. After the war, his success in Europe and in the US skyrocketed.  He died in 1966, widely acknowledged as a remarkable representative of surrealism.

    The exhibition in Bucharest also hosts screenings of “Les illuminations successives,” an excerpt from the movie “Victor Brauner – Le grand illuminateur totémique” (2014) directed by Fabrice Maze.

    Călin Stegerean: “This is an event that we promote under the motto ‘More than an exhibition, an experience.’ Because the public are invited to experience it with their senses, an experience restoring their relationship with visual arts. The design is unique, it is designed to convey a dreamy, oneiric dimension through the very configuration of the space and the colours of the walls on which the works are displayed. We actually set out to offer several types of messages, some of them represented by the texts accompanying the various sections of the exhibition, but beyond that, there are the changing colours of the walls, and the geometry of the space is nothing like what the public has seen so far in the temporary exhibitions hosted by our museum. I believe this is a first at international level as well, and I must confess we did some thorough research in this respect.”

    The National Art Museum of Romania owns eight paintings and two drawings by the artist Victor Brauner. (MI, AMP)

  • Film O’Clock International Festival

    Film O’Clock International Festival

     

    Film O’Clock International Festival reached its 4th edition, which took place between February 28th and March 3rd in prestigious film universities, cinema halls and partner centres in Romania, Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Greece, Egypt and South Africa.

     

    For the international short film competition, the festival team chose 10 contenders from the 8 countries, some of which have already been nominated and awarded in international film festivals like the Berlinale, Sarajevo, Jihlava, and San Sebastian. These films are competing in the Film O’Clock International Festival for 2 awards: the audience award and the jury award. The Film O’Clock Festival director, Mirona Radu, told us about the selection process this year.

     

    Mirona Radu: “Every year we tried to consolidate the festival, and we added another country each year. We started out with 5 countries, now we have 8. And of course our idea, our goal, is to add more time zones, more countries, because people are first and foremost interested in the concept. It is very interesting to know that the same movie is seen in very different and far apart countries at the same time. There have been simultaneous screenings in Europe before, but with the 2 films from Africa added this year, we have managed to go beyond the limits of the continent. This year’s selection has been very difficult, because we received a lot of high-quality entries, we watched over a hundred films. This is a good thing; it proves that we are becoming more visible, that people trust this concept and our selection. It is a joy, but it also made the process more difficult, as I was saying. There are 3 of us in the selection committee, and obviously there were heated discussions, perhaps because we come from very different backgrounds. Apart from myself, the committee includes the critic Andrew Mohsen from Egypt and Zhana Kalinova from Bulgaria. It’s not easy, finding a formula or putting together a selection that caters to all types of audiences, there is no question about that, especially because our festival addresses so many different people from so many different countries. But at the same time, the selection process is interesting because we all learn something. We cannot focus on a particular genre, so we include both fiction films and animations, and this year we had a documentary as well. Moreover, in terms of the selection, we don’t aim for a specific number of films. We would have wanted more entries this edition, but since most of them are rather long, 20, 25 even 30 minute, there were not a lot of titles we could include.”          

                                                         

    The international competition included 3 Romanian films (“Suruaika”, directed by Vlad Ilicevici and Radu C. Pop, “When the MIGs fly”, directed by Philip Găicean, and “Hypatia”, by Andrei Răuțu), and one from the Republic of Moldova (“Bad News”, by Liviu Rotaru). Film O’Clock International Festival also comprises two conferences:

     

    Mirona Radu: “Every year, the festival includes 2 conferences, addressing the industry people, so to say. Since the guests are usually industry professionals, the topics tend to be somewhat specialised, but the conferences as such are open to the general public as well. One of them focuses on heritage and artificial intelligence. The goal is to establish a connection between the past and the present, while also looking towards the future. AI, which is very much discussed these days, may also be an instrument in preserving our heritage—I mean archive films or even films in less used languages. For instance, in South Africa, which has 11 official languages at present, there is this company which is conducting a very interesting project with the help of AI. What they have set out to do is, by using AI, to preserve the films made there and the languages used in those films, with their specificity, because there is no telling how long we will be able to keep these things given the growing globalisation. The second conference centres around mental health, a very widely discussed topic and one which is quite important to tackle. We must admit that, as far as mental health is concerned, the film industry is or may be a toxic environment, unless we manage to observe certain limits. This is what we will be talking about in this second conference.”

     

    Each short film in the Film O’Clock International Festival has given a unique perspective on the culture of its country or has attempted to take the audience to an imaginary world, unrelated to any country. Themes like family ties, societal changes, poignant realism and unbridled imagination are among the topics explored in this year’s selected shorts, says Zhana Kalinova, a film critic and a member of the Film O’Clock International Festival’s selection committee. (AMP)

  • “Between Romania and France”.  A Bucharest Art Gallery Exhibition

    “Between Romania and France”.  A Bucharest Art Gallery Exhibition

    The annual exhibition organised by the Bucharest Art Gallery with the Bucharest City Museum is of particular importance this year, when Romania celebrates 30 years since it became a full member of the International Francophonie Organisation. We talked about the exhibition with the museum’s deputy director, Elena Olariu:

     

    Elena Olariu: “The exhibition was opened on November 17, 2023 and will stay on until September 26 this year, so there is enough time for art lovers to see it. In 2023 we celebrated 30 years since Romania joined the OIF, and this is precisely the reason why this exhibition was organised. The most important idea conveyed by the works on display is the intrinsic connection between Romanian and French art. Since the second half of the 19th Century, and especially in the 20th Century, until the communist regime started, Romanian youth would go to Europe to study art. They would study in Munich and in Paris. In Paris, they would go to the greatest art academy in the world, the Beaux Arts, as Paris had become the world’s art centre, at least in the second half of the 19th Century.”

     

    Elena Olariu gave us more details about the history of Romanian Francophonie from the perspective of fine arts and the Romanian artists’ love for France and especially for Paris. She also spoke about the beginnings of modern art in Romania and the birth of higher education in arts, initiated by the painter Theodor Aman (1831-1891):

     

    Elena Olariu: “It was in the French capital that Theodor Aman studied, for instance, and it is with him that our exhibition begins. He completed his art studies in Paris and even started to show his works there, at the official art salons, major art exhibitions, the largest in Europe actually, which showed works by French artists and by the artists who stayed in Paris after graduation. Theodor Aman had fulfilled his dream of studying in the European capital of art. But he returned to Romania and set up the Fine Arts School here in Bucharest.”

     

    The deputy director of the Bucharest City Museum also listed a number of other major Romanian artists (such as Nicolae Grigorescu, 1838-1907, Ion Andreescu, 1850-1882 and Ștefan Luchian, 1869-1916), whose works are on display at the Suțu Palace, and who were influenced by France and the artistic connections with the arts in Paris:

     

    Elena Olariu: “Another important artist, a grand master, our national painter Nicolae Grigorescu, also left for Paris to complete his education in arts. Many of these Romanian artists had been church painters and they went to Paris to learn about modern art, the art of easel painting, as we would say today. Andreescu did the same, and we have an interesting work of his in the exhibition. … After Grigorescu and Andreescu, it was Ștefan Luchian’s turn to come to Paris. Although Luchian had initially studied in Munich, he lived for a while in Paris afterwards. And this very interesting alternation between Munich and Paris was a regular practice for a long time.”

     

    Elena Olariu also mentioned the extraordinary relationship between the Romanian painter Theodor Pallady and the great French painter Henri Matisse:

     

    Elena Olariu: “In France, Romanian artists met French artists as well… Pallady, for instance, became friends with Matisse, … and, for those who don’t know the amazing story of the Romanian traditional blouse, he offered the French artist a small series of traditional blouses with exquisite needlework. He gave them to Matisse as a present, and in turn Matisse made an important series of drawings and paintings featuring these peasant blouses worn by young female models. … These impressive connections were not only important in terms of art per se, but also in terms of the promotion of Romanian culture in general, and this is a very important aspect to keep in mind.”

     

    We asked Elena Olariu which other artists are featured in the exhibition:

     

    Elena Olariu: “Other important artists in the exhibition are Ștefan Popescu, who studied in Munich but lived many years in Paris, and Kimon Loghi, for instance, who travelled and worked across France. Iosif Iser, Max Arnold, Ștefan Constantin and many other artists travelled constantly between Romania and France. And I would also like to mention Cecilia Cuțescu-Storck, represented in our exhibition by a number of graphic works and paintings.”

     

    At the end of our conversation, Elena Olariu concluded:

     

    Elena Olariu: “We believe this exhibition fully reflects the important connections between Romania and France, especially in the inter-war period, and the heights reached by Romanian art during those times.” (AMP)

  • Romanian film-maker Calin Peter Netzer’s most recent feature-length film

    Romanian film-maker Calin Peter Netzer’s most recent feature-length film

    Familiar
    is Calin Peter Netzer’s most recent feature-length film. It has been shortlisted for the Tallinn Black Nights International Film Festival’s 27th
    edition.


    Familar
    has been in theaters since late January. Familiar tells the tale of
    a film director who is looking into the history of his own family, pushing the access
    towards the family’s most fragile moment of its existence: the immigration to Germany
    in the 1980s. Immigration which occurred under dubious circumstances and which
    reveals family secrets, links with the Securitate as well as older wounds, The
    film is built with the minuteness of a detective investigation, where the
    viewer is invited to be the investigator himself, Calin Peter Netzer said about
    Familiar. The screenplay was written by Călin Peter Netzer and Iulia Lumânare. Barbu
    Bălăşoiu and Andrei Butică are the directors of photography. On the cast, there
    are Emanuel Pârvu, Iulia Lumânare, Ana Ciontea, Adrian Titieni, Victoria Moraru
    and Vlad Ivanov.


    Winner
    of the Gopo Award in 2019 in the Best Actor category, Iulia Lumânare got significantly
    involved in the making of Familiar, thus resuming her work together with Călin
    Peter Netzer. Iulia is a co-scenarist, an actress, a casting director and an
    acting coach. Here is Iulia Lumanare, speaking about her involvement in Familiar
    and about the reasons that prompted her to work with filmmaker Calin Peter Netzer
    for a second time around

    The film is inspired by the process myself and Călin Peter Netzer have been going through, lived and experienced
    when we started writing the screenplay. As, initially, the film was about his
    family’s immigration to Germany in the communist regime, in the early 1980s. After
    three months when we looked at the story from each and every angle, what we
    actually wanted from it appeared clearer to us. So we decided the story started
    off from the very moment we lived back then, in 2019, when we were thinking
    about the film. What we had to say had its origins from that kind of present.
    About the reason why I resumed work with Călin Peter Netzer, what I can say is
    that his previous film, Ana, mon amour, still is an essential experience in
    my career. From that moment on I was not just an actress or teacher, I was also
    a screenplay writer. I knew it, I had the intuition of the fact that I
    could write it, but Călin Peter Netzer was the one who put all his trust in me and
    I shall always be very grateful to him for that. And here we are, we’ve been working
    together for the second time around, because the first time when we worked
    together was indeed something very special, with no conceit or the conflicts
    that may flare up when artists work together. And that’s what Familiar is also
    about, it is a film about truth, about the things we cannot stand seeing in us,
    about those things we would like nobody to see, in fact. That is exactly why
    the topic has somehow turned into something about us, even though there is a
    lot of fiction there, that’s for sure.


    The
    Child’s Pose (2013), Călin Peter Netzer’s third feature-length film, after the
    many-time awarded productions Maria and Medal of Honor scooped the Golden Bear
    in the Best Feature-length Film category as part of the Berlin Film Festival. The
    Child’s Pose thus became the first Romanian film ever to have scooped such an
    award. In 2017, Călin Peter Netzer returned in the Berlinale’s Official
    Selection with Ana, mon amour and won the Golden Bear for Outstanding Artistic
    Contribution. His films have also been very well received by the public setting
    box office records in Romania. A co-writer
    of the movie script for Ana, mon amour and Familiar, Iulia Lumânare spoke
    about the connection between the last three films made by Călin Peter Netzer.

    Familiar can be watched jointly with Ana, mon amour and The Child’s
    Pose, it can make some sort of a trilogy together with these two films. In all
    these films there is a universe which is very familiar to Călin Peter Netzer, which
    he rendered very realistically. All these films are about identity, about what,
    one way or another, troubles the human being. The quest for identity is a quest
    we find in all these characters in the films, irrespective of their plot. And through
    this quest of the characters, a lifetime quest, for some of them, the stories acquire
    their universal scope, no matter how specific they may be. As for Familiar, a
    filmmaker who wants to make a film explores the past of his own family and
    tries to restore the ties between the members of his family, yet he finds out
    he is unable to do that. That is very difficult as, just as we know, you do not
    choose your family, you take your family as it is. Whereas the central character
    in Familiar fights his family, his parents, trying to raise their awareness
    regards several things they cannot understand or accept.


    The
    producers of Familiar are Călin Peter Netzer and Oana Iancu, through Parada Film
    production house. The film is co-produced by Cinema Defacto (France), Gaïjin
    (France) and Volos Films (Taiwan).

  • Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș at the Romanian Peasant Museum

    Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș at the Romanian Peasant Museum

    Ethnographer, museologist and cultural journalist Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș (1872-1952) was one of the important figures of the Romanian national culture, though quite forgotten during the years of communist regime. He was close to the royal family, King Carol I of Romania (1839-1914) in particular, and in 1906 he founded the National Museum, the core of the current National Museum of the Romanian Peasant (NPM). Since 2022, the museum has been hosting an exhibition honoring the personality of its founder.



    Here is more from the manager of the museum, Virgil Ștefan Nițulescu:


    Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș, the one who wrote a fundamental book for our culture, Romanian Museography, is the one we honored last year, when it was 150 years since his birth and 70 years since his death. He was honored with this exhibition that we opened on November 24, 2022. But though we initially intended to close the exhibition after six months, we realized that first of all we were not yet ready to reopen the permanent exhibition, but also that there were so many unique items to be seen in this exhibition, titled: Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș, founder of the National Museum. Because all the exhibited items, apart from the few objects that are part of the family collection and the museum collection and that have a commemorative role, are personal objects that belonged to Samurcaș, otherwise, all the other objects that were collected by him were placed in the museum’s storage rooms. Some of them were displayed in the exhibition that he himself made in the years after the First World War. Others were never exhibited again, for various reasons, they could not be exhibited, they remained in storage rooms. And we wanted to make them visible, to make them available to the public, because, unfortunately, people don’t know much about Tzigara-Samurcaș.



    Virgil Nițulescu described to us with admiration the personality of the founder of the Peasant Museum, Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș, as follows:


    He was an absolutely outstanding personality of our national culture, a versatile man, a man who did a lot of things. I found myself thinking at one point, when did he have the time to do so many things? Because he was not only the director of this museum, from 1906 to 1946, so for 40 years, but he was also the director of the Royal Foundations. He was director of cultural publications, he went all over Romania to photograph and collect objects. He visited many countries, especially Italy and Germany. He was a man, moreover, of German culture. That’s where he got his doctorate.



    From the perspective of the NPM manager, there are some things that should be remembered about Tzigara-Samurcaș and the collection he left to Romanian culture:What is important about Tzigara-Samurcaș, and this is the thing that distinguished him from all other museologists, who collected such kind of cultural goods, is the fact that he did not consider himself an ethnographer and tried to collect objects that he would call beautiful. And Tzigara-Samurcaș tried, so to speak, to put the art that he considered national, that is, those objects made by anonymous Romanian peasants, but which were very beautiful, so this kind of art, in opposition to Western courtly art. In other words, he considered that what gives us our identity, what makes us Romanian, is this art made by anonymous peasant artists. This was the type of collection he made and our museum is, to this day, marked by his way of thinking. All our collections are collections of beautiful objects, not necessarily representative. Our museum has a unique collection because of the way the objects were collected.



    Virgil Ștefan Nițulescu also told us what the exhibition brought from a cultural point of view.


    I would like to add the fact that Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș had the attitude of a Renaissance man. He had a vast culture, he was a man interested in everything that happened around him, in the citadel, as they say, in Romanian culture. Such a personality was forgotten after the communist coup of December 30, 1947, and it was forgotten on purpose. And now, since this exhibition was opened, and we decided to keep it right until the whole permanent exhibition is reopened, now we see that more and more people start to take an interest in the personality of Tzigara -Samurcaș and many have started talking about him more in the public space.



    At the end of our discussion, NPM manager Virgil Nițulescu shared the following with us:


    Although, on the one hand, I wish as soon as possible, this year, to reopen the permanent exhibition, on the other hand, I must say that it will be difficult to part with this temporary exhibition dedicated to Tzigara-Samurcaș. But, I must say that some of the objects that were placed in the temporary exhibition will also remain in the permanent exhibition, so that they can be seen again by our public there, as soon as possible, in the year 2024. (MI)


  • “Pilgrim”, a drawing exhibition by the late Vlad Ciobanu

    “Pilgrim”, a drawing exhibition by the late Vlad Ciobanu


    At the beginning of December last year, the Bucharest Metropolitan Library (BMB), hosted, within Artoteca BMB, the opening of an exhibition by one of the most appreciated and valuable visual artists: Vlad Ciobanu. Entitled Pilgrim, the exhibition, which was Ciobanu’s last one, included drawings by this special artist, who was also known as one of the best Romanian sculptors. A graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest, he participated in numerous salons and personal and collective exhibitions, both in the country and abroad. The Pilgrim exhibition was opened by the special guest of the artist, the well-known art critic Pavel Şușară.



    Vlad Ciobanu, who unfortunatelly suffered a sudden death this January, told us more about the exhibition, in one of the last interviews he gave: I exhibited works, drawings from two cycles, mainly from the Pilgrim cycle and from the Praying Earth cycle. You saw that it’s kind of figurative, in the sense that I started from the idea that the pilgrim has a target, a quest and the target and that quest transform him and he becomes that stake, that target, that quest. The praying earth means the many religious landmarks in this world. And that land is transfigured, because it is a land of prayers, consecrated in this sense. Moreover, man himself is a praying earth, because Adam, as we know from the translation, means red earth. I also exhibited a few more works, starting with red, yellow and blue, a tribute to this country that we love less and less, unfortunately. At the same time, in keeping with the symbol of chromatic representations, blue is for the Father, red is for the Son and yellow is for Holy Spirit. And there is the character who detaches Himself from the Trinity and descends to save us. All three are related and to me they are more like rugs. Maybe there is also a kind of contemplation, of reflection, but to a large extent for me they are forms of praying. And I have two more drawings, after Nichita Stănescu, after one of Nichita’s Elegies. We were brothers and I felt that, marking 90 years since his birth and 40 years since his death, now, on December 13, I felt the need to evoke him and make a reference to him.



    How was the year 2023 for the artist Vlad Ciobanu? And why his exhibition, Pilgrim is made up exclusively of drawings? Vlad Ciobanu: I worked, not very much though, but the searches are seen less than in the moments of success. I wanted to bring sculpture as well, but first I wanted to see how the drawings fit together, if they build a world, and then bring in the sculpture as well. And to the extent that the drawings became parasitic, I would extract them. I would have kept only what was organically included in the exhibition. I didn’t bring the sculpture anymore, because between December 21 and January 7, the exhibition was closed, because this room belongs to the Sadoveanu Library. And then I said it’s quite an effort and it’s almost impossible to visit. But I’m going to do this exhibition again, we’ll see, in another room. That’s also quite small and, unfortunately, quite inconspicuous, as you know. But, for me, this exhibition is made primarily to understand if things can continue on this path and if they, apart from the works themselves, constitute a universe, a world, if they propose something. And it seems to me that I can go on. So, in conclusion, 2023 was a good year, since I was able to reach a conclusion, although provisional, but nevertheless a conclusion.



    Since we are at the beginning of a new year, but also of work and full of cultural events, Vlad Ciobanu told us what he expects from 2024 and what he is preparing in terms of exhibitions and artistic symposia: You are invited to symposia. Maybe I will hold it in Ploiesti, I don’t know, but I am preparing an exhibition for Iași, for the Cupola Hall, and a large, somewhat retrospective exhibition at the Palace of Culture in Iași. Being a Moldavian, I want to start there and I will probably be focusing a lot on it. I’m also working on two or three books, but only from time to time, not systematically, because sculpture doesn’t allow me.


    Vlad Ciobanu planned a large exhibition for next year, at the Palace of Culture in Iasi. The exhibition may still be organized, but unfortunately, posthumously. (EE)




  • The “Cuza 150” Exhibition

    The “Cuza 150” Exhibition


    In early October 2023, the
    National History Museum of Romania (MNIR) hosted the opening of the exhibition
    Cuza 150, marking 150 years since the death of prince Alexandru
    Ioan Cuza (1820-1873). Cuza was the first ruler of the Romanian United
    Principalities and of the modern Romanian state. A major historical subject of
    both controversy and fascination, Cuza’s rule had a great impact on the
    development of the Romanian state. Cornel Ilie, the deputy director of MNIR,
    the curator of the Cuza 150 exhibition, told us more:


    The exhibition obviously
    celebrates 150 years since the death of Alexandru Ioan Cuza. Like I’ve said on
    previous occasions, this is not just an exhibition about Cuza’s death. It
    rather focuses on the life and activity of Alexandru Ioan Cuza. Therefore, for
    us, Cuza 150 was an opportunity to bring Alexandru Ioan Cuza back
    into the spotlight, given he is an iconic representative of our modern history.
    His name is tied to a major milestone in Romanian historiography – the Union of
    the Romanian Principalities, as well as to a series of events and actions with
    a key contribution to the emergence of modern Romania. Our exhibition speaks
    not only to Alexandru Ioan Cuza the ruler. Surely, parts of it focus on that,
    but it also speaks to the man he was. At one point I actually considered
    picking a different name for this exhibition, for instance Cuza, man and
    ruler. Alexandru Ioan Cuza ultimately had all the makings of any man: a
    man of many talents, certainly flawed, with weaknesses and passions of his own,
    with an entourage made of people of greater or lesser quality, although with
    equal influence on his rule. Therefore, everyone who visits the exhibition will
    discover all these different sides of Alexandru Ioan Cuza.


    Cornel Ilie also told us how the
    exhibition approaches these two different personae: Cuza the ruler, the
    politician, and the prince’s private life.


    We tried to illustrate
    these two sides by means of a series of heritage items, each telling a story,
    for instance, about Alexandru Ioan Cuza’s family, his parents and rise to
    prominence. They speak to who Cuza was before ascending to the throne, about
    his diplomatic career, about his stellar military career, because Cuza is
    portrayed in full military uniform in every instance of this exhibition. He is
    never depicted in civilian dress, but always wearing military garb.


    Cornel Ilie tells us more about
    the items on display:


    There are certain
    symbol-objects, such as the two thrones of ruler Alexandru Ioan Cuza and his
    wife Elena Cuza, thrones that had also been used by Charles and his wife
    Elisabeth until 1881, when they were crowned King and Queen of Romania. Also on
    display is the famous official portrait of Alexandu Ioan Cuza which we all know
    from history books, painted by Carol Popp de Szatmari. A very interesting exhibit is the painting
    dedicated to the Union of the Romanian Principalities, signed by Theodor Aman,
    which is perhaps the most important painting dedicated to that historic moment.
    We have tried to identify all the people in the painting, so that visitors
    should know the names of all those who took part in this highly important event
    in Romania’s history. The exhibition also includes objects that tell us, for
    example, about the agrarian reform, which was very important not only because
    it meant that peasants received land, but because it was a moment that
    generated some very important changes in the political life of the country.
    There are exhibits that remind of the establishment of the university in Iași
    and Bucharest, the first two universities on Romanian territory. There are also
    very interesting objects related to the implementation of the single weights
    and measures system, given that up to that moment it had been a total chaos,
    each province using different measurement units. Part of the exhibition are also
    objects that remind us of the military reform and of the outstanding
    achievements during Cuza’s rule, when a number of vital institutions for the
    further development of the country were established. Among them are cultural
    institutions, science academies, visual art institutes and the Institute of
    Statistics, established in 1860, when the first census was conducted. The first
    weapon ever made in Romania, at the Romanian Arms Manufacture, is also
    displayed. Then there are exhibits that, as I said, tell us about Cuza’s
    personal life, about the life of his wife Elena and their relationship and also
    items that touch on taboo topics, such as the relationship he had with Maria
    Obrenovici.


    Cornel Ilie also told us his
    personal opinion on the exhibition:


    It is an exhibition that, I
    believe, has a different approach from what others may have seen related to
    Cuza before. It is an exhibition worth visiting also due to the fact that we
    put together items collected from several museums in the country. I believe
    people could better understand this complex and admirable historical
    personality, by visiting the exhibition at the MNIR. (VP/EE)