Contemporary art in the time of the pandemic

The National Museum of Contemporary Art is reopening its gates to the public

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 21.07.2020, 13:00

After nearly two months since museums were
closed down, life seems to have gone back to its usual track. The National
Museum of Contemporary Art will reopen its gates to the public. Its director,
Calin Dan, says the museum has prepared a number of surprises:

We have a number of surprises in store.
We organize large exhibitions twice a year, which take up all of our floors.
Also twice a year we organize 5-6 new exhibitions, without counting our
permanent collections, which undergo periodic changes. This year the exhibition
will focus on the unfortunate events we’ve all experienced and had to deal
with. The exhibition will be set up outside, in the greenfield in front of the
building. It will be something new for us as well.

The motto for the new season is Art as a
social binding agent. All exhibitions can be visited upon reservation,
according to regulations.

In the lobby there will be a huge
painting installation by university professor and director of the Union of Fine
Artists, Petru Lucaci, an old friend of the museum. In the nearby room there
will an installation by the Cluj-based artist Radu Comsa, which I’m sure will
raise a few eyebrows. On the first floor, Seeing History, one of the pillars
of our collection, which will bring about many new works. On the third floor we
will lay out the second episode of our retrospective of Iulian Mereuta’s works,
an outstanding Romanian-French artist, who unfortunately passed away a few
years ago. On the fourth floor guests will get to admire a personal exhibition
by Filip Markiewicz, a Luxembourg-based middle-aged artist. The café will venue
a series of proposals aimed at making the museum more visible, which will
consist of personalizing the mugs and glasses used in the café. Then, the
staircase taking guests from the lobby to the fourth floor will display
graffiti works by famous Romanian artists.

Petru Luccaci will be represented with his
exhibition, Material-Scapes. Influenced by post-materialism and social objects,
Petru Lucaci re-evaluates the symbolism of surrounding objects, by proposing
and constructing new material landscapes. From recycled and converted objects
to the translation of apparently insignificant objects, the artist reassembles
spaces, wrapping it in different connotations.

Radu Comsa’s exhibition is titled 4-color
conversation. His works try to create their own setting, incorporating
divagations and serial references to play as a working method. The starting
point of his exhibition is a comprehensive analysis of studies on colour,
seeking to reveal empirical truths rather than illustrate them.

The fourth floor is devoted to the
Ultraplastik Rhapsody, a project by Filip Markiewicz. The project continues to
develop a polymorphic language, evoking the complexity of the modern world.
While digital Europe is entangled in internal conflicts, with economic growth
and technological advancement still being purported as the only direction for
humanity, Filip’s universe of signs and images underpins the lack of substance
in the current global discourses and encourages individuals to resist the
regimes of fear.

The exhibition continues with a review of
works by Iulian Mereuta, a representative of third-generation Romanian
surrealism, a member of the Arta Magazine and an iconic member of the
conceptual art movement started in the late 60s, before emigrating to France in
1978. It is a living exhibition revolving a dynamic concept, which will undergo
many changes during its public display.

A youthful and simple project is Go to
MNAC, a contemporary art exhibition, the result of a contest addressing young
creative artists that puts the Museum of Contemporary Art on the city map. The
20 works exhibited depict the finalists and winners of the Go to MNAC contest.
The winning work will be printed in over 50.000 copies on the glasses used in
the museum café.

Finally, URBAN STEPS incorporates 20 years
of urban art in Romania, giving voice to over 20 street artists across the
country and a 500-square-meter graffiti, which will be displayed in the
interior staircase.

Admission is granted only to a limited number
of guests at a time, who will have to wear face masks. Also, hand sanitizers
have been made available in the building.

(Translated by V. Palcu)