GAEP

New works by Roberta Curcă are on view in the group exhibition Living the Archive: Rooms of Yesterdays, hosted by the Franciscan Monastery in Cluj-Napoca through November 10.

The exhibition proposes a conceptual portrayal of Kunstkammers, where artistic and archival practices, and art's involuntary educational stake enmesh. Eight artists spent time in museums' backrooms and immersed their practices in old artefacts, books, architectures, local histories, and personal stories tied to them, punctuating these encounters in new works, which act as a visual medium for knowledge and reiterate the two poles of Kunstkammers: natural and human-made.

Artists: Dan Beudean, Codruța Cernea, Lorena Cocioni, Giulia Crețulescu, Roberta Curcă, Luca Florian, Adrian Ganea, Thea Lazăr

Curatorial team: Adriana Bicăzan, Daniela Custrin, lulia Vlad

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Featured artworks: Roberta Curcă, Vernacular fantasies, artist book, cardboard, paper, coloured pencils, ink, vinyl, 2026, 200 x 50 x 10 cm; Caiet de laborator, installation with notebook and pedestal, 2026, 100 x 65 x 65 cm; Laminate și fușăraie, coloured pencils, oil marker on canvas, 2026, 77 x 50 x 4 cm; Reșița feeling, vinyl on Polypropylene, 70 x 50 cm, 2026

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In focus: Michel Zózimo

Michel Zózimo’s work invites us into a lively universe where animals, plants and sometimes human bodies mix and merge, with no hierarchy between them. The two drawings selected by curator Sylvia Monasterios for the exhibition Wild Metaphysics make visible the porous boundary between the mundane and the fantastic or the uncanny.

Wild Metaphysics is part of Romanian Artweek. Come by to explore works by Thiago Barbalho, Maria Nepomuceno, Mariana Rocha, Guga Szabzon, Marina Woisky, and Michel Zózimo.

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Featured artworks: Michel Zózimo, Notívagos, 2023 and Pézinho, 2023, Indian ink on cotton paper, 46 x 36 x 4 cm (framed) each; courtesy of the artist and Martins&Montero

📷 Alexandru Paul

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Works by Vlad Nancǎ are part of two museum exhibitions currently on view in Bucharest.

⚪️ Brâncuși. The Syndrome, on view through 14 March 2027 at Muzeul Național de Artă al României, features Vlad Nancă’s Endless (2017) and Souvenir (2014). Both works engage critically with the influence of Brâncuși on our socio-cultural space and imaginary.

⚫️ At MARe/Muzeul de Artă Recentă, Images of History, Histories of Images includes the digital slideshow Dacia: 30 Years of Social History (2003). By documenting dozens of Dacia 1300 in Bucharest, the artist looked at the way the emblematic car shaped the cityscape. The exhibition is on view through 25 April 2027.

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Featured artworks: Vlad Nancă, Endless, 2017, welded rebar, concrete, 40 × 40 × 185 cm, courtesy of Avi Cicirean Collection (1); Vlad Nancă, Souvenir, 2014, found negative, enlarged, Ultra Giclée print, 48 × 70 cm, edition of 3 + 1 AP, courtesy of the artist (2); Vlad Nancă, Dacia: 30 Years of Social History, 2003, digital slideshow, 4'00", edition of 5, courtesy of MARe (3)

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Art meets literature: because Wild Metaphysics is permeated by literature, drawing from magical realism and fantastic literature, we’re asking the artists and the curator of the exhibition to reveal one book they always recommend to friends.

MARINA WOISKY, artist

Pick: ‘The Invention of Morel’ by Adolfo Bioy Casares

“There’s something about this book that makes it impossible, as a reader, to place yourself exactly. You can’t tell if you’re inside the main character’s delusion, in reality, or in a fantasy world. On top of that, the story itself is one big simulation, where love and reality only exist in immortality.” – Marina Woisky

🗓 Wild Metaphysics is on view through October 24.

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📷 courtesy of the artist

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In focus: Marina Woisky

Marina Woisky draws inspiration from digital photographs of decorative objects and ornaments with organic forms. Her works in the group exhibition Wild Metaphysics occupy a liminal space between two and three dimensions. Using printed fabrics filled with cement and coated with resin as her primary materials, she creates hybrid forms that blur the distinction between reality and fantasy.

Plan a visit to take a close look!

On view through October 24 | Artists: Thiago Barbalho, Maria Nepomuceno, Mariana Rocha, Guga Szabzon, Marina Woisky, Michel Zózimo | Curator: Sylvia Monasterios

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Featured artworks: Marina Woisky, Grades com papagaios, 2024, print on fabric, sewing, cement and resin, 66 x 94 x 3 cm; Pelas grades do jardim II, 2024, print on fabric, sewing, cement and resin, 46 x 93 x 3 cm; courtesy of the artist and Almeida & Dale

📷 Alexandru Paul

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A new series of drawings by Raluca Popa is on view at MODEM in the group exhibition Cultivators of Life, which presents artistic practices that approach cultivation as a form of knowledge production, community building, and ecological imagination.

Popa continued an ongoing practice of reproducing, through drawing, miniature versions of works by Richard Tuttle. The resulting series of 26 coloured drawings, one for each letter of the alphabet, is titled My Best, A–Z.

The work is also informed by the artist’s research at the Library of the Reformed College of Debrecen, where she encountered historical herbariums in which plants were pressed, preserved and recorded between the pages of books. This inspired the final form of the work. The small drawings depict not plants, but familiar tools and materials used to build, repair, fasten, protect and transform: wire mesh, wood, fabric, thread, tubes, tape, and nails.

The exhibition, curated by Adelina Luft (tranzit.ro) and Krisztián Gábor Török (MODEM), is on view through December 31, 2026.

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Featured artworks: Raluca Popa, My Best, A-Z (after Tuttle), 2026, coloured pencil drawings on paper, plywood, thread, 26 pcs, each 19 × 32 cm, courtesy of the artist and MODEM

📷 Levente Vigh and Raluca Popa

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Romanian Artweek (17–25 October) debuts today and we’re happy to join over 50 galleries, art spaces, and museums in celebrating contemporary art.

Visit us to discover Wild Metaphysics, an exhibition bringing together six contemporary Brazilian artists: Thiago Barbalho, Maria Nepomuceno, Mariana Rocha, Guga Szabzon, Marina Woisky, and Michel Zózimo.

Curated by Sylvia Monasterios, this is the first presentation of the artists’ work in Romania.

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📷 Alexandru Paul

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In focus: Mariana Rocha

"The universe within the body, with the uterus as its first home. A primordial water pouch that bursts and expels celestial bodies. The connection between the universe of waters and the cosmos is perceptible. Thus, it is possible to imagine the birth of a star from an inexhaustible, watery source of energy.” — about Casa flutuante, barriga, nascente estelar, which translates from Portuguese as Floating house, belly, star formation

Mariana Rocha’s painting is on view in the group exhibition Wild Metaphysics (curator: Sylvia Monasterios), alongside works by Thiago Barbalho, Maria Nepomuceno, Guga Szabzon, Marina Woisky, and Michel Zózimo.

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Featured artwork: Mariana Rocha, Casa flutuante, barriga, nascente estelar, 2024, acrylic, oil pastel and oil stick on canvas, 160 x 114 x 3.5 cm; courtesy of the artist and A Gentil Carioca

Installation view: Alexandru Paul

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In focus: Guga Szabzon

Guga Szabzon maps bodily sensations, memories, dreams, and figments of the imagination onto felt. Using a sewing machine, she creates lines that seem to dance across the felt surface as well as spaces where the thread has room to breathe. One might imagine landscapes, stars, charts, skies, bodies in motion, streams, bridges, trails, among many other possibilities. Taken as a whole, the works reveal idiosyncratic topographies.

Three recent works are on view in the group exhibition Wild Metaphysics (curator: Sylvia Monasterios), alongside works by Thiago Barbalho, Maria Nepomuceno, Mariana Rocha, Marina Woisky, and Michel Zózimo.

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Featured artworks: Guga Szabzon, Travessia, 2020, sewing on felt, 22.8 x 20 cm; Sina, 2024, sewing on fabric, 140.5 x 115 cm; Luzeiro, 2023, sewing on felt, 53 x 129 cm; courtesy of the artist and Almeida & Dale

📷 Alexandru Paul (1-2, 4) and Julia Thompson (3)

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