CEALALTĂ FAȚĂ A LUMII
Opening | Tuesday, May 5, 2026, from 6:00 p.m. at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 6 Tribunei Street, and from 7:00 p.m. at Brukenthal Palace, 4 Piața Mare
Dates | May 5 – 31, 2026
Venue | Museum of Contemporary Art of the Brukenthal National Museum, 6 Tribunei Street, and Brukenthal Palace, 4 Piața Mare, Sibiu, Romania
Curator | Liviana Dan
Co-curator | Alexandra Runcan
Artists | Ana Maria Micu, Ioana Olăhuț, Anca Bodea, Mirela Moscu, Ioana Iacob, Anca Brânzaș, Oana Năstăsache, Andrea Tivadar, Roxana Ajder, Ioana Tocoaie
https://www.brukenthalmuseum.ro/
"Painting no longer relates to the world — painting supplies images about the world. Our problems become the problems of painting. Painting imposes an independent reality, deliberately contemporary. Exhibitions increasingly become experiments. As a practice, humanism is chosen. As a zeitgeist, a permanent piece of culture. The assertion is very simple. The Brukenthal Palace was a pinacotheca; Baron Samuel von Brukenthal, a collector of contemporary art. The Brukenthal National Museum developed close to art history, close to contemporaneity. The new painting is presented somewhat fractured. The grids are fluid between images and reality. Between the figurative and the abstract — the ductus, the surface, the color, the topic, the ideas of representation are utilized... Clearly configured spaces are chosen — the passage from the figurative to the abstract, the configuration of the abstract into figurative forms, and, at the Brukenthal Palace, the development of these two positions in the immediate vicinity of art history." — Liviana Dan, curator
Cealaltă față a lumii gathers the works of ten female artists formed at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca and active on the contemporary painting scene. This project proposes a reflection upon the place that painting occupies today in contemporary art and upon the manner in which a feminine perspective can be identified within the context of the artistic production associated with the Cluj-Napoca school of painting over the last two decades.
The double deployment within the spaces of two museums: the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Brukenthal Palace, in the Temporary Exhibitions Hall; creates a dialogue between the practice of contemporary painting and the museum tradition that grounds the current Brukenthal National Museum, an institution founded upon the pinacotheca of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal. Through this linkage, Cealaltă față a lumii becomes a symbol-exhibition that situates contemporary painting within a historical continuity and affirms the permanence of this medium in contemporary artistic practice.
Opening | Tuesday, May 5, 2026, from 6:00 p.m. at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 6 Tribunei Street, and from 7:00 p.m. at Brukenthal Palace, 4 Piața Mare
Dates | May 5 – 31, 2026
Venue | Museum of Contemporary Art of the Brukenthal National Museum, 6 Tribunei Street, and Brukenthal Palace, 4 Piața Mare, Sibiu, Romania
Curator | Liviana Dan
Co-curator | Alexandra Runcan
Artists | Ana Maria Micu, Ioana Olăhuț, Anca Bodea, Mirela Moscu, Ioana Iacob, Anca Brânzaș, Oana Năstăsache, Andrea Tivadar, Roxana Ajder, Ioana Tocoaie
https://www.brukenthalmuseum.ro/
"Painting no longer relates to the world — painting supplies images about the world. Our problems become the problems of painting. Painting imposes an independent reality, deliberately contemporary. Exhibitions increasingly become experiments. As a practice, humanism is chosen. As a zeitgeist, a permanent piece of culture. The assertion is very simple. The Brukenthal Palace was a pinacotheca; Baron Samuel von Brukenthal, a collector of contemporary art. The Brukenthal National Museum developed close to art history, close to contemporaneity. The new painting is presented somewhat fractured. The grids are fluid between images and reality. Between the figurative and the abstract — the ductus, the surface, the color, the topic, the ideas of representation are utilized... Clearly configured spaces are chosen — the passage from the figurative to the abstract, the configuration of the abstract into figurative forms, and, at the Brukenthal Palace, the development of these two positions in the immediate vicinity of art history." — Liviana Dan, curator
Cealaltă față a lumii gathers the works of ten female artists formed at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca and active on the contemporary painting scene. This project proposes a reflection upon the place that painting occupies today in contemporary art and upon the manner in which a feminine perspective can be identified within the context of the artistic production associated with the Cluj-Napoca school of painting over the last two decades.
The double deployment within the spaces of two museums: the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Brukenthal Palace, in the Temporary Exhibitions Hall; creates a dialogue between the practice of contemporary painting and the museum tradition that grounds the current Brukenthal National Museum, an institution founded upon the pinacotheca of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal. Through this linkage, Cealaltă față a lumii becomes a symbol-exhibition that situates contemporary painting within a historical continuity and affirms the permanence of this medium in contemporary artistic practice.
The idea and the selection of artists were first introduced in the book with the same name, "Cealaltă față a lumii / The other face of the world", launched in 2024 by Hassium Cultural Association, edited by Anca Bodea and Ioana Olăhuț.
"/Abstract Expressionism, the New York School, German Neo-Expressionism, the Leipzig School, the Cluj School have few, if any, female artists./ But what should a female artist who enters one of these programs should look like, given the critical attention? To have the intellectual purity of Agnes Martin, to own the political power of Marlene Dumas and the super box-office hit of Jenny Saville and it still might not be enough in the eyes of the mega-brothers.
Linda Nochlin, Bonnie Mann, Cardy Korsmayer began to write about women artists, to define the role of women in art, to explain their position in history and in art history.
But before you use the arguments of theory, criticism, memory, identity, technology, gender, cyber-feminism, you have to understand what was different, how this feature evolved and how it remains connected to the world for all those art scenes that admired modernism but became post-modernist."
Dan, Liviana. "color - impasto - shade - and other essentials." In Cealaltă față a lumii / The other face of the world, pp. 180–183. Cluj: IDEA Design & Print Editură, 2023.
"/Abstract Expressionism, the New York School, German Neo-Expressionism, the Leipzig School, the Cluj School have few, if any, female artists./ But what should a female artist who enters one of these programs should look like, given the critical attention? To have the intellectual purity of Agnes Martin, to own the political power of Marlene Dumas and the super box-office hit of Jenny Saville and it still might not be enough in the eyes of the mega-brothers.
Linda Nochlin, Bonnie Mann, Cardy Korsmayer began to write about women artists, to define the role of women in art, to explain their position in history and in art history.
But before you use the arguments of theory, criticism, memory, identity, technology, gender, cyber-feminism, you have to understand what was different, how this feature evolved and how it remains connected to the world for all those art scenes that admired modernism but became post-modernist."
Dan, Liviana. "color - impasto - shade - and other essentials." In Cealaltă față a lumii / The other face of the world, pp. 180–183. Cluj: IDEA Design & Print Editură, 2023.
MEDIA COVERAGE
Cosmin Năsui, Expoziția „Cealaltă Față A Lumii” @ Muzeul De Artă Contemporană – Muzeul Național Brukenthal din Sibiu, May 4, 2026, modernism.ro
Dana A, „Cealaltă față a lumii”, la Muzeul Național Brukenthal: expoziție de pictură contemporană, semnată de artiste din Cluj-Napoca, 30 aprilie 2026, sibiu100.ro
Cosmin Năsui, Expoziția „Cealaltă Față A Lumii” @ Muzeul De Artă Contemporană – Muzeul Național Brukenthal din Sibiu, May 4, 2026, modernism.ro
Dana A, „Cealaltă față a lumii”, la Muzeul Național Brukenthal: expoziție de pictură contemporană, semnată de artiste din Cluj-Napoca, 30 aprilie 2026, sibiu100.ro
MY WORKS WITHIN THE PROJECT
While being an artist, I choose to also operate as a facilitator for plants. There is little specific domesticity depicted in these works. What is essential about them is that they are strictly scenes observed from my positioning within the space. The private sphere remains mostly behind me; I stand in the center, surrounded by the tools and gear required for production. These visual structures develop only when I deliberately pause to look at them. The act of painting serves as a factual testimony to this existing structure, documenting the functional overlap of plant and human life and needs.
Because these environments operate as closed systems, entropy is not passive; it requires an agent. Realist painting, with its demands for time and fidelity, becomes the mechanism for documenting this reality, validating specific acts of survival. Works such as "next occupant. ... Remain calm" (2025) depict the necessary, often devastating interventions, such as the culling of overgrown plants, required to sustain the finite ecosystem of the studio.
While being an artist, I choose to also operate as a facilitator for plants. There is little specific domesticity depicted in these works. What is essential about them is that they are strictly scenes observed from my positioning within the space. The private sphere remains mostly behind me; I stand in the center, surrounded by the tools and gear required for production. These visual structures develop only when I deliberately pause to look at them. The act of painting serves as a factual testimony to this existing structure, documenting the functional overlap of plant and human life and needs.
Because these environments operate as closed systems, entropy is not passive; it requires an agent. Realist painting, with its demands for time and fidelity, becomes the mechanism for documenting this reality, validating specific acts of survival. Works such as "next occupant. ... Remain calm" (2025) depict the necessary, often devastating interventions, such as the culling of overgrown plants, required to sustain the finite ecosystem of the studio.
