The exhibition “Estranged from Nature” by Romanian painter Ioan Sbârciu opened yesterday at Zuecca Project Space in Venice, Italy (Squero Castello, Salizada Streta 368, Venice, just around the corner from Arsenale). The exhibition is open for visits, from 4 to 6 pm until July 14th.

"As a painter, Ioan Sbârciu carved a unique path in the history of Romanian art, through this particular ability to orchestrate painting as a continuum field of forces and energies, spread over immense surfaces and complex color networks" - MNAC Bucharest.

"Curated by Maria Rus Bojan and Alessandro Possati, the exhibition offers a coherent overview of his recurrent themes since the nineteen-eighties, inviting reflection on the multiple forms of alienation that correspond to the complex nature of our times" - Sector 1 Gallery.

The exhibition is organized by Zuecca Projects and the European ArtEast Foundation in partnership with Sector 1 Gallery, MB Art Agency, Artewiser Association and it is co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration (AFCN) Romania. The exhibition will be followed by an extensive catalogue.

Rhine's women are naked, displaying their flabby folds with passion and desperation. These portraits are characterized by colorful wigs, fanciful genillas, and facial expressions that border on the monstrous and pathetic. The entire exhibition seems like the catalog of a dying and decaying sex industry, but these wild creatures still insist on squeezing out the last drops of their sensuality. In this way, the artist opens the debate on the normative parameters for the representation of sexuality.

More than a questioning of beauty and what a normative body means, Flavia's portraits show a worn-out spirit, how a body exhibits what it has learned in an automatic and unreflective way. Women pose as if they are being watched, so their movements seek to catch the attention of others.

The idea of the worn-out spirit can be expanded to other aspects of contemporary life: the deficit of vital energy left by the pandemic, the bitterness against the advances of fascist governments in the rest of the world, the militancy in networks that seems to replace more and more the presence in the streets. Even so, the works neither judge nor take a punitive attitude. With a tone of humor, in Rin's works in "Gravity", the bodies have erased the habits and obligations that society imposes on them.

One of the strong points of Joaquín Barrera's curatorship is the use of the color palette. As he mentions in his text, the works led him to think of those youth culture heroines of the late eighties that are now coming back and re-versioned, like Jem & The Holograms, to make use of their brightness and aesthetics. Already from the first floor, the light tubes spill their gradient on the walls, making them go from fuchsia to pink, then to lilac and violet, until they end up in the deep blue of the carpet.

In the basement room, the strategy of light is repeated and another element is added to continue and develop this aesthetic proposal with a corrugated aluminum foil that gives the wall texture and turns it into a reflective surface. On top of this assembly hangs a pop rapunzel wearing only a pearl necklace and satin boots while bouncing on a rubber sphere holding her breasts.

"Gravity" is undoubtedly an exhibition that if you are in Buenos Aires you should not miss. Flavia Da Rin demonstrates once again her versatility throughout more than 20 years of career. The artist consolidated a work of art created from performance, theatrical interpretation, photography, digital intervention, and pop culture references.

In the following period, the Brașov Art Museum invites the public to discover "Emergencies", a double solo show by internationally renowned contemporary artists Lia and Dan Perjovschi.

The exhibition presents aspects of the artists' research in the last 35 years, bringing two distinct and complementary perspectives on the realities, complexities and challenges of the present. The fascinating works of Lia Perjovschi, grouped under the title "Survival Kit" (selection from the "Museum of Knowledge"), meet in harmony with the impactful creations of Dan Perjovschi, presented in the "Press Stress" section.

Through a series of photographs, installations, sculptures, videos, and performances by 22 internationally acclaimed Argentine artists, the exhibition explores the diversity of views and expressions of the culture of a country that in the past was the destination of the great European migrations. As a tribute, the exhibition takes its title from the homonymous novel by Argentine writer Héctor Bianciotti, whose plot is intertwined with the curators' careful selection, as it tells the story of his parents' migration and his own migration to Europe.

The itinerary enriches its narrative with recent works produced by prominent artists who, through diverse supports and poetics, abound in those key episodes of Argentine history. The tour presents emblematic works such as León Ferrari's "Western and Christian Civilization"; Lucio Fontana's famous slashes; Alberto Greco's provocative performances in Italy; the series of photographs that record Liliana Maresca's nude performance in the magazine El Libertino; there are also images and a video of Marta Minujín during the broadcasting of a program in which the artist created a live performance. An installation by Liliana Porter welcomes the exhibition.

For his part, Leandro Erlich presents Brooms: a structure formed by two identical brooms resting on each other that create in the viewer the false illusion of a mirror. Jorge Macchi gives autonomy to a suitcase that slides through the room, disturbing the visitor's path. In the next room, Tomás Saraceno presents the video "Vuela con Pacha, hacia el Aeroceno" based on an action carried out in the Salinas Grandes basin, Jujuy, with the local population protecting their ancestral lands from lithium extraction.

Other participants are Eduardo Basualdo, Mariana Bellotto, Adriana Bustos, Matías Duville, Lucio Fontana, Ana Gallardo, Alberto Greco, Cristina Piffer, Nicolás Robbio, Miguel Rothschild, Graciela Sacco, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Mariela Scafati, Juan Sorrentino and Adrián Villar Rojas.

In November 2023, the exhibition was inaugurated in the PAC space with the presence of the artists and curators, within the framework of a program carried out by this institution to show contemporary art from other countries in the Italian context. From that moment on, Proa Foundation has been involved in the exhibition, collaborating with the diffusion of Argentine art abroad.

The exhibition is complemented by an extensive program of activities organized by the Education Department of Fundación Proa to deepen the themes of the works and their scope in contemporary art.

A poster exhibition from Germany, Austria and Switzerland will be presented at the beginning of the jubilee year which marks 30 years of existence of the German Cultural Center in Cluj-Napoca.

By using an augmented reality [AR] application, part of the exhibited posters will be able to be viewed in an animated version.

The German Cultural Center in Cluj-Napoca, in partnership with the 100 beste Association Plakate e.V. and the Cluj-Napoca Art Museum (MACN), with the support of the Goethe-Institut Bucharest, Goethe-Zentrum Chisinau and Cartopack, organize between March 7 and 24 2024, the exhibition "100 Beste Plakate 22 // The 100 best posters 22".

The opening will take place on Thursday, March 7, 2024, starting at 18:00, at the premises Cluj-Napoca Art Museum (Bánffy Palace, P-ța Unirii no. 30), in the presence of Alexandra Rusu-Cătană, director of the German Cultural Center and the curator of the exhibition, museographer Alexandra Sârbu.

The public is invited to discover the internationally recognized exhibition "100 Beste Plakate 22" [The best 100 posters 22], which brings to the fore the most innovative and expressive elements of posters design from Germany, Austria and Switzerland from 2022. The "100 Beste Plakate" competition is an important supporter and promoter of graphic design in the German-speaking world, involving numerous established designers, students, art academies, agencies, clients and individual projects.

The exhibition resulting from the competition travels the world every year. After traveling in South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, Republic of Moldova, Slovenia, exhibition "100 Beste Plakate 22" now arrives in Cluj-Napoca (RO).

The competition "100 Beste Plakate" is one of the oldest design contests in Europe, operating in various formats since 1966, when the first awards were given for the best posters.

"The annual exhibitions offer a fascinating insight into contemporary culture of posters and promotes the different approaches and styles of participating artists and designers. Of to political messages to cultural events and to product representations, the award-winning posters covers a wide range of topics.

Poster proposals are welcome in all genres and print techniques provided they have been designed, printed and published in that year. The works are evaluated by a jury consisting of renowned specialists who change from year to year. By the visibility I get in the exhibition and the publication that accompanies it, the winners of the competition have access to international recognition", I find out from museographer Alexandra Sârbu.

The 2022 selection includes 48 posters from Germany, 43 from Switzerland and 9 from Austria, divided into three categories:

A – 87 posters as advertising support for business, culture and social issues, works at orders displayed in semi-public or public spaces;

B – 2 posters for self-promotion, as an author's graphic design or as an experiment;

C – 11 posters made by students, in an educational context.

663 people participated in the contest with a total of 2298 posters, of which 1073 individual posters and 335 series. The jury of the 2022 competition was made up of the international experts Yvo Hählen [Balmer Hählen, CH-Lausanne], Barbara Kotte [Kollektiv Scrollan, D-Berlin], Thomas Kronbichler [Studio Mut, I-Bozen], Wolfgang Ortner [OrtnerSchinko, A-Linz] and Antonia Terhedebrügge [Studio Terhedebrügge, D- Berlin].

On this occasion, a group of eight students of the Faculty of History and Philosophy within "Babeş-Bolyai" University (UBB) from Cluj-Napoca, bachelor's level, specializations "History of Art" and "Cultural Tourism", will have the rare opportunity to be actively involved, alongside the team of the German Cultural Center and the technicians of the host museum, on the construction site complex installation and arrangement of the exhibition, under the direct coordination of museographer Alexandra Sârbu and the supervision of the practice manager from the higher education institution, lect. university Dr. Voica Pușcașiu. The practicing students are: Any Marin, Charlize-Jennifer Mesz, Denisa-Ioana Moldovan, Timea-Eliza Nagy, Paul-Ionuţ Tîrla, Paula Turcin (1st year, Art History), Andreea Pop and Andra Cătălina Săvan (second year, Cultural Tourism).

Here you can see the exhibition archive: https://100-beste-plakate.de/archiv-plakate 

Therefore, from February 19 to March 19, more than 350 sculptures are exhibited in 24 personal and collective exhibitions, and 48 works are displayed in public spaces, indoors and outdoors, in different locations of the city.

Representatives of modern sculpture such as Ion Jalea, Oscar Han, Dimitrie Paciurea (through the involvement of the Constanța Art Museum) Ion Irimescu (works from the "Ion Irimescu" Museum in Fălticeni) Marcel Guguianu, Corneliu Medrea, Mihai Olos, Peter Jecza, along with the Romanian contemporary artists such as Paul Neagu, Geta Brătescu, Aurel Vlad, Mircea Roman, Laurențiu Mogoșanu, Dumitru Verdianu, Horia Damian and Maxim Dumitraș are among the exhibitors.

The special guest in 2024 is the contemporary artist Mircea Cantor. After exhibiting in major museums of the world, Cantor can now be seen at the Palace of Culture in Iași, where the "Rope Column" is exhibited, a sculpture-installation, which takes up one of the motifs often found in Cantor's work - the rope, the one that leads to unity, balance and solidarity. 

The artist said that "the motif of the rope is reproduced on the wooden churches in Maramureş, but not only there, they are also found in Bihor. The symbol is a reference to unity, solidarity and consolidation of a community. You can find the rope, obviously, in other civilizations and cultures, starting with the Babylonians, the Egyptians, then the European cultures, and it speaks of something that binds, holds together. I took the motive and wanted to take it further."

For the first time at the Palace of Culture in Iasi are exhibited drawings by Brâncusi and a series of original photographs, taken by Edward Steichen in New York, all from the Mariana Florescu Collection. A unique portrait of Brâncusi, made by the surrealist Man Ray, can be found at the National Athenaeum in Iasi. Plus many other sculptures and installations...