Winter exhibition season 2024

The National Museum of Contemporary Art—MNAC Bucharest announces the winter 2024 exhibition season, a part of the MNAC20bis anniversary, marking 20 years in the Palace of the Parliament.

THE TWIST. Failing Empires, Triumphant Provinces (curators Călin Dan & Celia Ghyka) continues in the two spaces of the ground floor: a journey through the history of the TWIST as a conceptual mediator for morphological and symbolical exchanges between spiritual and material cultures. The show tracks the trajectories-in-time of the different regions belonging to present day Romania that have been contact zones between the margins of various empires, thus developing a resilient identity of intersection that gives the notion of “provincial” a dignified significance. The original exhibition design allows for an unconventional assemblage of archaeology, ethnography, applied arts, apparel, ethnographic and industrially mass-produced products, lent by 17 museums from all around the country and put in dialogue with contemporary art works from the collection of the MNAC and from private collections.

Parallel Lines. High Modernism in Croatia 1948–1998 (first floor, curator Branko Franceschi) features 188 artworks tracing the evolution of Croatian visual art between the moment when Yugoslavia distanced itself from the USSR and socialist realism, to the year marking the reintegration of Croatian territories during the aftermath of the Homeland war of the ‘90s. This era, shaped by Yugoslavia’s vision of a “socialist state with a human face”, nurtured High Modernism and Neo-avant-garde styles. Zagreb, particularly in the 1960s, became an international hub for artistic innovation, epitomised by the New Tendencies biennials (1961–73), described as the Last Avant-garde. The exhibition highlights the coexistence of these opposing tendencies as the very engine that has shaped a vibrant cultural scene through dialogue, debate, and confrontation. The National Museum of Modern Art (NMMU), founded in 1905, houses over 12,350 artworks, preserving Croatian visual art from the mid-19th century to today. The exhibition is organised under the high patronage of the Parliament of Croatia.

The permanent storage-exhibition Leviathan (second floor, concept Călin Dan, curator Irina Radu) currently features currently also a special focus on works from the MNAC Collection signed by Horia Bernea and Corneliu Baba, two reference names of Romanian 20th century art, works admitted recently as part of the National Cultural Heritage.

The first comprehensive retrospective dedicated to Ioana Nemeș (1979–2011), ALL TIMES AT ONCE unfolds on the third and fourth floors, re-reading the complex practice of one of the most fascinating artistic presences on the Romanian scene after 2000. Curated by KILOBASE BUCHAREST (Sandra Demetrescu, Dragoș Olea), the exhibition charts the non-linear path of Ioana Nemeș’s artistic becoming, projecting the oeuvre against the complex backdrop of her processes and research. Important series like “Monthly Evaluations” (2005–10), “Relics for the Afterfuture” (2009), “Untitled” (2010), “Expensive Fiasco / Cheap Success” (2010) are presented alongside previously unpublished materials or lesser known works, facilitating an understanding of her multiple conceptual, methodological and formal developments. Ioana Nemeș’s archive plays a significant role in the exhibition, revealing important aspects of her artistic research between 2001 and 2011, alongside her participation in art, fashion and design collaborative projects. A series of contributions resulting from research were commissioned to a group of prestigious curators and writers, offering new possibilities for revisiting the work of the artist.

Stela Lie presents At Home (Auditorium, curator Alexandru Oberländer-Târnoveanu), a glimpse into this artist and educator’s years-long practice. Stela Lie is dealing among others with the notion of representation, depicting familiar places and unassuming objects—snapshot-like instances of her inner life; her drawings of bourgeois interiors are in fact self portraits, both elusive and revealing by using the strategies of a narrative undercurrent.

Together with Molotow Romania, MNAC is organising two special projects featuring a selection of the most important voices in Romanian street art: Urban Elevation celebrates this art form in a truly immersive—and permanent—collective installation on the fire escape staircase, spanning hundreds of square meters with mural interventions by IRLO, Atoma, Alex Baciu, KERO, KSELE, LOST.OPTICS, Ortaku, Pisica Pătrată, Flaviu Rouă, Cristian Scutaru. As a spin-off, Urban Spirit (also featuring Anca Toma) will take the shape of an outreach project, in 2025.

MNAC Sponsors: AQUA Carpatica, Greentek Lighting, DARA Lighting, Crama Oprișor, Grup Transilvae, Molotow, ProfiArt, Vitamin Aqua & Pop Cola.

Main Sponsors of Ioana Nemeș. All Times At Once: UniCredit Bank, Carl von Linde Foundatio. Info & press: info@mnac.ro.