Photo credit @CosminGrigore
Part of our popular Art Fridays online series, the virtual tours through some of the most important art institutions in Romania continue with an exploration of MARe (the abbreviation of the Museum of Recent Art but also Romanian for 'great' or 'big' and 'sea'), a private museum founded in 2018 and exhibiting “recent” artworks, that is, artworks created after 1965.
Located in the former house of the infamous Ana Pauker, one of the Stalinist leaders of postwar Romania, now fully renovated into a spectacular five-level facility designed by Youssef Tohme Architects and Associates (YTAA), MARe gathers over 120 artworks displayed across almost 13,000 square feet.
The museum aims to become a platform for vivid and broad discussions about recent Romanian art and history, as well as to generate timely, meaningful debates about Romania’s Communist past. It also strives to foster national and international partnerships and leverage the visibility of the arts in Romania through research, education, and exhibitions. Beyond its museal purpose, MARe holds a research library focused on mapping European curatorial and collecting practices in contemporary art.