The current calendar covers exhibitions dedicated to Brâncuşi’s legacy, highlights from the collections of local museums, and shows spotlighting the practice of international artists.
As Romania has made 2026 the Year of Brâncuşi to mark 150 years since the birth of the sculptor, several exhibitions highlight the artist’s work and legacy. Masterpieces from the collections of museums across Romania are brought together in one venue, the Museum of Architecture in Romania explores architectural imagination as part of a wider project, and the National Art University of Bucharest is opening its Pinacotheca to the wider public. The work of international and local contemporary artists is under the spotlight at dedicated shows, while other events take recent episodes in Romania’s history as starting points. A selection of what can been seen in Bucharest below.
Brâncuşi. The Syndrome
Until October 25, at the National Museum of Art of Romania
The exhibition traces the impact of Constantin Brâncuşi in local art and examines the various forms of artistic discourse that have been constructed around both his work and his personality, from the interwar period to the present day. The public can see, among other works, portraits of Brâncuși by M.H. Maxy, Theodor Pallady, and Milița Petrașcu; tribute works created by M.H. Maxy and Vasile Dobrian; sculptures by Milița Petrașcu, Irina Codreanu, Hans Mattis-Teutsch, Ion Irimescu, George Apostu, Ovidiu Maitec, and Vasile Gorduz; as well as contemporary reinterpretations of Brâncuși’s motifs, from Paul Neagu’s studies based on Bird in Space, Mademoiselle Pogany, and The Column, to works by Iosif Kiraly, Teodor Graur, Mircea Cantor, Vlad Nancă, Michele Bressan, and Dan Perjovschi.
Boîte, Box, Brâncuși
Until October 15, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art
Also focused on Brâncuși’s legacy, the exhibition explores how the artist’s influence is transmitted and reinterpreted in local contemporary art. The project brings together video works, photography, and documentary materials that “examine how Brâncuși’s work continues to be activated, questioned, and re-signified today.” The artists included in the exhibition are Carina Cristea, Tudor Cucu, Gabriel Durian, Peter Jacobi, Aurelia Mihai, Mircea Modreanu, Bianca Nițu, Nicu Popescu, Elena Preda, and Andreea Samoilă. The exhibited works are meant to function as “capsules (box/boîte) that not only preserve but also activate and reinterpret fragments of the master’s legacy, transforming it from an archive into a laboratory of contemporary ideas.”
Photographs by Constantin Brâncuşi
Until September 27, at the Museum of Recent Art
The exhibition presents Constantin Brâncuși’s black-and-white photographs, spanning from his years at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris to the monumental ensemble at Târgu Jiu, in 1937-1938. Photography was not simply a tool of documentation for the artist, but an practice through which he observed and re-evaluated his sculptural works. His photographic approach was shaped by what has been described as “an obsessive attention to light, which he regarded as an integral component of his sculptures, inseparable from the spaces they inhabited.” The exhibition’s three sections place Brâncuși’s photographs in dialogue with contemporary artworks by Carl Andre, Marion Baruch, and Evariste Richer.
Pinacotheca – Noua
July 1
An early work by Brâncuși, the Écorché, is part of the collection of the National Art University of Bucharest (UNARTE), which is opening its Pinacotheca to the general public on July 1. The art gallery opens alongside the institution’s new Library, gathering various heritage items, historical documents, and more than 60,000 volumes dedicated to visual arts and culture. The Pinacotheca will be a permanent exhibition venue dedicated to the university’s collections. The exhibition covers painting, sculpture, historical drawings, sculptures from the Kalinderu Collection, portraits by Theodor Aman, Gheorghe Tattarescu, and from Ștefan Luchian’s student period, Theodor Aman’s original engraving press, and artworks by key figures of Romanian art. Among other highlights are the academic records of figures such as Constantin Brâncuși, Ștefan Luchian, Victor Brauner, Arsenie Boca, and Sofian Boghiu. On July 1, the program includes guided tours and other curated experiences for the wider public at the Pinacotheca and the new Library.
The Museum of Museums
Until October 4, at the National Museum of Art of Romania
More than 100 works from the collections of 16 museums in Romania, as well as from the permanent collections of the MNAR, make up this exhibition that aims to cover the masterpieces that visitors can discover throughout the country. Among the exhibition’s highlights is the Glykon Snake, an ancient sculpture presented in Bucharest for the first time. Not seen since September 2024, following the closure of the Museum of National History and Archaeology in Constanța for renovation, the piece is deemed one of the exhibition’s major attractions. The exhibition also showcases a group of prehistoric artefacts belonging to the Gumelnița Culture, “whose clay forms, strikingly modern in appearance, invite a fresh perspective on ancient art.” Other highlights include the Tetraevangelion of Gavril Uric; works by Rubens, Dürer, Mucha, Bonnard, Cézanne, Rodin, Bourdelle, Gustav Klimt, Camille Claudel, and Henry Moore; highlights of Romanian art by Nicolae Grigorescu, Ioan Andreescu, Ștefan Luchian, Theodor Pallady, Nicolae Tonitza, Marcel Iancu, Victor Brauner, Horia Bernea, and Corneliu Baba; as well as Japanese woodblock prints by Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsushika Hokusai, including the image The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
MuzA at the Palace – the Museum of Architecture in Romania
Until June 28, at the Rural Land Credit Palace
The idea of a museum of architecture dates back to the 19th century, and now it has come to life as a traveling museum, which started its itinerary in Bucharest. For four years, it will work as a curatorial program exploring the relation between people, spaces, and architecture in 11 venues in the country, from Bucharest to Băile Govora, Brăila, Reșița, Cluj, Eforie, Brașov, Văleni (Neamț), Timișoara, Petrila, and back to the capital. This month, the museum has been hosted inside Bucharest’s Rural Land Credit Palace, a building that the exhibition made accessible to the wider public.
The inaugural theme of MuzA is Fantasy, a “concept that explores architectural imagination as a form of memory, projection, and interpretation of space.” The exhibition gathers works by architects and artists from different generations alongside contributions that engage critically with Bucharest and its histories. It features works by Henriette Delavrancea-Gibory from the Image Archive of the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, competition projects from the archive of the Union of Architects of Romania, photographs from private collections, and the results of an open call exploring the experience of dwelling in Bucharest, among others. Guided tours are also available, and one in English is planned for June 27.
Bernard Frize
Until August 16, at the Museum of Recent Art
This solo exhibition dedicated to the French painter gathers a selection of over 40 paintings created between 1980 and 2024, exploring the mechanisms and logic behind the act of painting. The works highlight “a joyful balance between procedural rigor and gestural freedom, exploring how strict rules and physical principles can generate a vast range of pictorial results.” Born in 1949 in Saint-Mandé, France, Bernard Frize began producing the works for which he is known today in the late 1970s. His works are held in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Kunstmuseum Basel, among others. He lives and works in Paris and Berlin.
Felipe Cohen – Concretion
Until July 25, at Gaep
The Brazilian artist’s second solo exhibition with the Bucharest gallery gathers new reliefs and sculptures. It “deepens Felipe Cohen’s pursuit of giving tangible form to time, natural light, the atmosphere of a place, and the interplay between them.” The artist uses “an artistic lexicon grounded in geometric forms, economy of means, and poetic sensibility” to give form to “fluid states, materialize abstract or evanescent phenomena, and transform moments into memories.”
Cohen, who lives and works in São Paulo, is the winner of multiple awards, including the illy SustainArt Award at ARCOmadrid (2016), Atos Visuais Funarte (2007), Fiat Mostra Brasil (2006), and a four-time nominee to the PIPA Prize in Brazil (2016, 2013, 2012, 2010). His work is part of museum collections such as Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Museu de Arte do Rio, and SMoCA: Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.
Anton Roland Laub – Mineriada
Until July 26, at 2/3 galeria
The exhibition, gathering 14 works by the Bucharest-born visual artist, proposes a reflection on recent memory starting from the violent events of June 1990. The series, part of a trilogy dedicated to the traces left by communism on Romanian society, draws on photographs taken at the time by the artist’s father. It revisits these images in a contemporary visual language “marked by tension, fragmentation, and absurdity.” This final part of his trilogy addresses “the societal division and the unspoken trauma of physical violence, raising awareness of recursive patterns in an increasingly polarized world.”
A.REST 1989
Until September 20 @ the National Museum of History of Romania
The exhibition, which reconstructs the world of the 1989 criminal investigations of Romania’s political police Securitate, makes public for the first time audio-video recordings from interrogations and prison cells, as well as original artifacts from the Securitate Detention Center and pieces of criminal evidence. Among them is the printing press used by the group formed around Petre Mihai Băcanu to produce the clandestine newspaper România. Confiscated by Securitate on the night of January 24, 1989, the press was recovered and brought back to Romania for this exhibition, after more than 27 years abroad. Alongside the exhibition, the online platform www.arestulsecuritatii.ro showcases histories, case studies, documents, audio-video recordings, and interviews with former victims of the Securitate.
Floriama Candea, Pepa Ivanova, and Ioana Vreme Moser – Hydrotopias
Until July 9, at Sector 1 Gallery
Based on field research conducted in the village of Sfântu Gheorghe, the exhibition invites the public to explore the Danube Delta through less familiar perspectives. It gathers works by artists Floriama Candea, Pepa Ivanova, and Ioana Vreme Moser, developed in dialogue with researchers Ștefan Constantinescu and Răzvan Crimschi. Through interactive installations, sound sculptures, video works, and artistic research, the show examines “the connections between water, humans, other life forms, and the infrastructures that shape this territory. The project is grounded in the idea that the Danube Delta cannot be understood through a single narrative, but rather through a multitude of perspectives that reveal the fragility, adaptability, and regenerative capacity of ecosystems.” After its Bucharest run, the exhibition will travel to Rebonkers in Varna, Bulgaria, where it will be on view from July 21 to August 9. The project will continue in autumn with a series of presentations and public discussions dedicated to the relationship between art, research, and ecology.
Cotoșman & co. The Lesson of Livius Ciocârlie
Until September 13, at the National Museum of Art of Romania
Roman Cotoșman was a co-founder of the Timișoara-based Group 111 (1966-1969) together with Constantin Flondor and Ștefan Betalan. After taking part in the 1969 Constructivist Biennale in Nürnberg, he emigrated to the United States of America and settled in Philadelphia in 1972. There, he continued his constructivist experiments and his exploration of abstract, minimalist forms. This show gathers more than 40 works from the collection of the literary critic, essayist, and professor Livius Ciocârlie. They range from painting and graphic works to pieces on wood, from early portraits to minimalist compositions of his maturity.
Roman Cotoşman – 110 Solitudes
Until October 18, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art
The exhibition traces the artist’s trajectory through works from the MNAC collection, “where minimal, nearly monochrome forms absorb the viewer into a universe of silence and inner rhythm.” “Suspended between Constructivist rigor and meditative sensitivity, Roman Cotoșman’s oeuvre proposes a highly concentrated visual experience, where geometry becomes a spiritual instrument, and the fragility of matter acquires the force of an inner monument,” a presentation of the exhibition reads.
(Opening photo: Pla2na | Dreamstime.com)
simona@romania-insider.com
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