Our current online arts series brings you the hotspots of Romania’s contemporary visual arts scene and some of the most talked-about artists' shows through 7 virtual gallery tours introduced by well establish curators and artists. Explore the portfolio of these first-rate galleries, located in major cities throughout Romania, and gain insight into their history, aesthetic outlook and contemporary relevance.
Learn more about the works and artists they promote and muse how they channel universal aspirations as well as intimate experiences through artistic gestures drawn from a wide range of perspectives and cultural traditions, which express shared desires for human connection and return to the life before the health crisis.
GALERIILE CAROL
Founded in 2015, the Carol Galleries are a Bucharest art hotspot with a curatorial program focusing on the '70s and '80s revival of Romanian diaspora art and the innovative approaches of artists residing abroad. Another direction of the gallery's activity consists in launching emerging artists who tackle pressing contemporary issues by working in unconventional environments in painting, sculpture, appliances, and new media.
#Episode 4: Galeriile Carol
About the ongoing show at the Carol Galleries:
SHAPING SURFACES
Artists: Ionuț Barău, Andrei Bălan, Alin Carpen, Alexandru Micloș, Alexandru Papuc and Tudor Rantzos
Shaping Surfaces is an exhibition in which different materials co-exist: from wood and metal, to plastic polyurethane foam and artificial fur. The artists are using memory as creative practice, either cultural, emotional, individual or collective memory. Through the recovery of some coal fragments from the Mill of Assan, Alin Carpen brings to the attention the memory of a historical monument; Alexandru Papuc transfers the water’s memory onto an industrial material; Andrei Bălan recuperates personalities/victims of the communist system; Tudor Rantzos resorts to cultural citations from the history of visual arts to remember the Mine of Petrila; Ionuț Barău appeals to protest art in favor of the environment by displaying some idyllic landscapes while Alexandru Micloș creates kinetic sculpture objects finding inspiration in Asian culture. The six artists transfer tale quale the vestige-objects they recover from nature or from buildings from their neighborhood which they want to rescue or from oblivion.
About the curator:
Raluca Băloiu is a curator and art historian who lives and works in Bucharest. She graduated from the Department of Art History and Theory at the University of Arts in Bucharest in 2007 and holds a master’s degree from 2009.
She curated exhibitions at several galleries like: AnnArt, Senso, Galateea, Palatele Brâncovenești Cultural Center. She was museographer at Cotroceni National Museum, where she organized: "Textile Colages in the work of Margareta Sterian –120 years from the artist’s birth" and "Here-There, artists from Romania and Diaspora, subjective routes from the '80, then and now" (2017).
She curated the exhibition "Romanian (under)layer" for AnnArt Gallery and an exhibition presented at Gloria Gallery in Nicosia, Cyprus (2019). Several outstanding artists were showcased: Ștefan Câlția, Dorin Crețu, Gheorghe Fikl, Sorin Ilfoveanu, Mircea Roman, Constantin Rusu, and Virgil Scripcariu.
Currently she is writing articles for Arta (Arts) magazine, exhibition reviews and book reviews for Ziarul de Duminică (The Sunday Newspaper), Observator cultural (Cultural Observer), Cultura (Culture), Forma (The Form), Time Out, Mixul de cultură (Culture Mix), etc.
She currently is the manager and curator of the Carol Galleries where she is in charge of the exhibition organization.
Find out more about Galeriile Carol: