Temporary Exhibitions
On Wednesday, June 11, 2025, the National Art Museum of Moldova will inaugurate the solo exhibition of artist Ioan Sbârciu, titled “Beyond the Forest.”
The National Art Museum of Moldova is pleased to present Beyond the Forest, an exhibition featuring recent works by master Ioan Sbârciu, a renowned professor of the Cluj School of Painting and one of Romania’s most important contemporary artists.
Curated by Dutch-Romanian art historian Maria Rus Bojan, the exhibition seeks to bring the visionary creation of this remarkable artist to the attention of both Moldovan and international audiences. It offers a comprehensive overview of the essential themes that define his pictorial practice, inviting reflection on the enigmatic ways in which painting can open new dimensions of meaning through a visual dynamic that lies at the intersection of reality and metaphysics.
Working in a refined and complex visual language—one that resonates with poetic illumination, moments of grace, or flashes of melancholy—Sbârciu explores themes he has approached consistently throughout his career: the beauty of nature, the mythic solitude of Don Quixote, the existential fragility of our times, climate change, the aggressive exploitation of natural resources, and the urgent need to redefine our relationship with both ourselves and the natural world.
Drawing on the sacred dimension of ancestral rural civilization, Sbârciu invokes in his painting the redemptive power of art and the infinite ability of nature to regenerate in ever-new forms. His works create poetic spaces that are as real as they are imagined—charged with an almost mystical beauty, deeply infused with the memory of the pristine forests of Transylvania.
Beyond his chromatic expressionism rooted in neo-romanticism, Sbârciu’s paintings often become autonomous physical topographies—tactile landscapes in which color blends with matter, and elements such as soil, dust, or ash serve not only as harmonic counterpoints, but also as subtle symbolic catalysts for the entire composition.
Ambitious and deeply layered, Ioan Sbârciu’s oeuvre is truly visionary. It is also inseparable from his lifelong mission as an innovative educator and mentor at Romania’s most prestigious art school.
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About the artist:
Ioan Sbârciu (b. 1948, Feldru) lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He graduated from the Painting Department of the “Ion Andreescu” Institute of Fine Arts in 1973. After holding various teaching positions, he began his academic career in 1990 at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca (UAD), where he served as Head of the Painting Department, Dean, Rector, and President of the University Senate.
He mentored the entire generation of artists associated with the "Cluj School of Painting" phenomenon, including Adrian Ghenie, Victor Man, Marius Bercea, Mircea Suciu, Șerban Savu, and many others.
His works have been showcased in major solo exhibitions at:
Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu (2024)
Squero Castello, Venice (2024)
National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest (2019)
BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium (2019)
Sant’Antonio Abate, Matera, Italy (2019)
Ron Mandos Gallery, Amsterdam (2019)
Eurojust, The Hague (2019)
Cluj Art Museum (2018)
Romanian Cultural Institute, Venice (2018)
Sector 1 Gallery, Bucharest (2018)
Fondazione Mena, Rome (2017)
Hugo Voeten Art Center, Herentals, Belgium (2015)
Accademia di Romania, Rome (2015)
Tarohei Nakagawa Gallery, Tokyo (2010)
Kunsthalle Köln, Germany (2003)
Dresdner Bank Gallery, Stuttgart
Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany (2001)
He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including:
Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu (2023)
Cluj Art Museum (2023, 2021)
UAP Gallery, Sibiu (2022)
Palace of Culture, Iași (2022)
Macadam Gallery, ICR Paris (2022)
Museo Valtellinese di Storia e Arte, Sondrio, Italy (2020)
Sector 1 Gallery, Bucharest (2019)
Bistrița-Năsăud Museum (2017)
National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest (2017)
Neon Gallery, Wrocław, Poland (2017)
Pecsi Gallery, Hungary (2017)
Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York (2017)
Gallery za Szklem, Academy of Fine Arts Wrocław (2016)
Art Safari, Bucharest (2015)
Astra Museum, Sibiu (2015)
Fortino di Sant’Antonio, Bari, Italy (2014)
Fondazione Maimeri, Milan (2011)
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London (2009)
Universidad del Pais Vasco, Bilbao (2008)
MODEM, Debrecen (2008)
Prague International Biennale, Czech Republic (2005)
Meotte Foundation, New York (2003)
Romualdo del Bianco Foundation, Florence (2003)
Public Gallery of De Nederlandse Bank, Amsterdam (2001)
His works are included in museum, public, and private collections across Romania, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Canada, and the United States.
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About the curator:
Maria Rus Bojan (b. 1967, Cluj-Napoca) is an independent art historian and curator currently based in Amsterdam. She served as curator of the Cluj Art Museum (1994–1999) and director of the Sindan Foundation and Cultural Center in Cluj/Bucharest (1999–2003). Since 2008, she has run MB Art Agency, a platform for curatorial projects focusing on Eastern European art.
Over the past three decades, she has promoted numerous international projects featuring major Romanian artists such as Ana Lupaș, Cornel Brudașcu, Ion Grigorescu, Paul Neagu, Ion Bitzan, and Ioan Sbârciu. She has contributed to retrospective exhibitions and publications on the renowned Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz, and curated numerous solo and group shows collaborating with artists such as Ulay and Marina Abramović, Thomas Hirschhorn, Antony Gormley, Michaël Borremans, Carlos Amorales, and Klaas Kloosterboer, among others.
Her long-standing collaboration with Ulay (1943–2020) culminated in an extensive monograph (awarded the 2015 AICA Netherlands Prize for publications), as well as a series of museum exhibitions across Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and the USA, and the posthumous retrospective Ulay Was Here at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
In 2011, she co-curated Performing History, the Romanian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, and in
2021 she curated The Secret Wing, the guest exhibition of the Art Encounters Biennale at the National Art Museum in Timișoara.
