SOUL, AIR, ANIMAL
Solo Show by Ana Maria Micu, curated by Kassandra Catrinescu
Opening | 28 April 2025, at 12:00 pm, in the presence of the artist and curator
Dates | 28 April - 8 June, 2025
Visiting Schedule | Visiting Schedule | Winter program (September 17 - May 15): Tuesday - Sunday 8:00 - 16:00, Summer program (May 16 - September 16): Tuesday - Sunday 9:00 - 17:00. Please go to the MIHAI EMINESCU FAMILY HOME and ask the museologists who are permanently on duty there to come and open the “Horia Bernea” Exhibition Hall. The last guided tour is 30 minutes before closing time.
Venue | “Horia Bernea” Exhibition Hall, Ipoteşti Memorial − “Mihai Eminescu” National Center for Studies, Ipoteşti Village, Mihai Eminescu Commune, Botoşani County, Romania
Exhibition Coordinator | Gabriel Azamfirei, Ipotești Memorial
www.eminescuipotesti.ro
comunicat de presă în română (pdf)
“The gentle tremble of figures and clay elements coming to life, the echo of a breeze behind every movement, the eerie sense that matter remembers. Clay – humble, organic, malleable – becomes a channel for transformation. It stretches, cracks, laughs, dances, suffers, and restructures. The stop-motion process reflects the act of breathing life: not instantly, not effortlessly, but deliberately and with care, developing into a choreography of becoming. As if animation were not just a technique, but a ritual of invocation. Not a perfect movement, flawless, of the digital illusion, but a celebration of irregularity, imperfection, the human touch – embracing the flicker, fumbling, strange grace of things learning to move – like dreams still unsure of their form. What is the soul if not the ability to move, to desire, to change? In clay, we see the metaphor of our own body: soft yet strong, subject to time, always in becoming.
It is an exhibition made of breath and earth, hands and eyes, of time unfolding frame by frame. Clay is not just a substance, but a vessel of potential, a skin of the world still cradled by dreams. Molded by fingers, warmed by light, bearing the traces of every touch, every intention, every hesitation. It remembers being earth and longs to become.
Anima, in the ancient, essential sense, speaks of psyche – the breath that animates, the unseen current in all living beings. In these animations, spirit is not abstract. It twists, wrinkles, opens. It moves with the weight of myth and the vulnerability of skin. Here, movement is not smooth, but sacred. Flickering is not a flaw, but proof of life asserting itself against inertia.”
Curatorial text by Kassandra Catrinescu
Ana Maria Micu (b. 1979, Dorohoi) is a visual artist from Botoșani, represented internationally exclusively by Mind Set Art Center in Taipei. Her portfolio includes paintings, drawings, animations, and video works inspired by her personal efforts to define and live a unique lifestyle and work method. Her animation “To Heal You, I Hardly Know What to Do” is part of the 2025 group exhibition “Touch Nature”, curated by Sabine Fellner for the Lentos Art Museum in Linz. Another animation has been acquired by the Iași Art Museum as part of the 2024 Art Acquisition program. In 2024, Mind Set Art Center presented her solo show “Woman, Scaffolding”. Another major solo exhibition of hers is “Left Hand To Distant View”, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. In 2004, Ana Maria Micu graduated with a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
www.anamariamicu.com
Kassandra Catrinescu (b. 1996, Târgu Mureș) is an emerging curator based in Cluj-Napoca. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Literary Studies (Russian Language and Literature – Universal and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Letters, UBB) in 2022, and her Master’s in Contemporary Curatorial Practices in 2024 (Department of Art History and Theory, Faculty of Decorative Arts and Design, UAD), currently pursuing a PhD at the same institution. Her research focuses on conceptual film analysis, practical applications of theoretical concepts in exhibitions, and historical and cultural intersections between art criticism and curatorial practices. In November 2023, she was selected for a residency for emerging curators, part of the Lapsus program (Timișoara), titled I.C.K.H.S. – Independent Curating Know-How Sharing. Curated exhibitions include: December 2023 – “Embrace chaos until you become numb”, Casa Matei Gallery, Cluj – painting exhibition; March 2024 – “those special traces of us”, Aparte Gallery, Iași – painting exhibition; May 2024 – “Métatexte. Laissez-moi te clarifier les choses”, Improbable Space, Cluj – graphic art exhibition; October 2024 – “The Red Carpet Chronicles. Narratives Interwoven in Color and Form”, Museum of the Romanian Peasant, Bucharest – sculpture, painting, and installation; March 2025 – “Slipping like sand through your fingers”, Mansarda Gallery, Timișoara – photography exhibition.
Solo Show by Ana Maria Micu, curated by Kassandra Catrinescu
Opening | 28 April 2025, at 12:00 pm, in the presence of the artist and curator
Dates | 28 April - 8 June, 2025
Visiting Schedule | Visiting Schedule | Winter program (September 17 - May 15): Tuesday - Sunday 8:00 - 16:00, Summer program (May 16 - September 16): Tuesday - Sunday 9:00 - 17:00. Please go to the MIHAI EMINESCU FAMILY HOME and ask the museologists who are permanently on duty there to come and open the “Horia Bernea” Exhibition Hall. The last guided tour is 30 minutes before closing time.
Venue | “Horia Bernea” Exhibition Hall, Ipoteşti Memorial − “Mihai Eminescu” National Center for Studies, Ipoteşti Village, Mihai Eminescu Commune, Botoşani County, Romania
Exhibition Coordinator | Gabriel Azamfirei, Ipotești Memorial
www.eminescuipotesti.ro
comunicat de presă în română (pdf)
“The gentle tremble of figures and clay elements coming to life, the echo of a breeze behind every movement, the eerie sense that matter remembers. Clay – humble, organic, malleable – becomes a channel for transformation. It stretches, cracks, laughs, dances, suffers, and restructures. The stop-motion process reflects the act of breathing life: not instantly, not effortlessly, but deliberately and with care, developing into a choreography of becoming. As if animation were not just a technique, but a ritual of invocation. Not a perfect movement, flawless, of the digital illusion, but a celebration of irregularity, imperfection, the human touch – embracing the flicker, fumbling, strange grace of things learning to move – like dreams still unsure of their form. What is the soul if not the ability to move, to desire, to change? In clay, we see the metaphor of our own body: soft yet strong, subject to time, always in becoming.
It is an exhibition made of breath and earth, hands and eyes, of time unfolding frame by frame. Clay is not just a substance, but a vessel of potential, a skin of the world still cradled by dreams. Molded by fingers, warmed by light, bearing the traces of every touch, every intention, every hesitation. It remembers being earth and longs to become.
Anima, in the ancient, essential sense, speaks of psyche – the breath that animates, the unseen current in all living beings. In these animations, spirit is not abstract. It twists, wrinkles, opens. It moves with the weight of myth and the vulnerability of skin. Here, movement is not smooth, but sacred. Flickering is not a flaw, but proof of life asserting itself against inertia.”
Curatorial text by Kassandra Catrinescu
Ana Maria Micu (b. 1979, Dorohoi) is a visual artist from Botoșani, represented internationally exclusively by Mind Set Art Center in Taipei. Her portfolio includes paintings, drawings, animations, and video works inspired by her personal efforts to define and live a unique lifestyle and work method. Her animation “To Heal You, I Hardly Know What to Do” is part of the 2025 group exhibition “Touch Nature”, curated by Sabine Fellner for the Lentos Art Museum in Linz. Another animation has been acquired by the Iași Art Museum as part of the 2024 Art Acquisition program. In 2024, Mind Set Art Center presented her solo show “Woman, Scaffolding”. Another major solo exhibition of hers is “Left Hand To Distant View”, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. In 2004, Ana Maria Micu graduated with a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
www.anamariamicu.com
Kassandra Catrinescu (b. 1996, Târgu Mureș) is an emerging curator based in Cluj-Napoca. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Literary Studies (Russian Language and Literature – Universal and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Letters, UBB) in 2022, and her Master’s in Contemporary Curatorial Practices in 2024 (Department of Art History and Theory, Faculty of Decorative Arts and Design, UAD), currently pursuing a PhD at the same institution. Her research focuses on conceptual film analysis, practical applications of theoretical concepts in exhibitions, and historical and cultural intersections between art criticism and curatorial practices. In November 2023, she was selected for a residency for emerging curators, part of the Lapsus program (Timișoara), titled I.C.K.H.S. – Independent Curating Know-How Sharing. Curated exhibitions include: December 2023 – “Embrace chaos until you become numb”, Casa Matei Gallery, Cluj – painting exhibition; March 2024 – “those special traces of us”, Aparte Gallery, Iași – painting exhibition; May 2024 – “Métatexte. Laissez-moi te clarifier les choses”, Improbable Space, Cluj – graphic art exhibition; October 2024 – “The Red Carpet Chronicles. Narratives Interwoven in Color and Form”, Museum of the Romanian Peasant, Bucharest – sculpture, painting, and installation; March 2025 – “Slipping like sand through your fingers”, Mansarda Gallery, Timișoara – photography exhibition.
MEDIA COVERAGE
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