The Art Safari Love Edition summer season will take place from June 30 to September 10 at the Dacia-Romania Palace on Lipscani Street. It will present four classical and contemporary Romanian art exhibitions, plus prestigious international art. The „Love Stories” exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, one of the most important international museums with the most extensive collection of portraits worldwide, will be seen for the national premiere. „Love Stories” presents portraits of famous couples, including Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, John Lennon and Yoko Ono or Salvador Dalí and Gala Dalí.
The Art Safari summer season will be about love! It is certain that the installations and the numerous stories from the Love Stories exhibition, with adventures, couples captured throughout history and secrets, will conquer the public. And Romanian Supercontemporary art is well represented in the Dacia-Romania Palace: we have the duel of nymphs and zombies in the vision of two young artists: Ondine and Baraka.
Ioana Ciocan, CEO Art Safari and commissioner of Romania at the Venice Art Biennale
Love Stories – curator: Lucy Peltz, an exhibition made in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery, London
Love floats in the Dacia-Romania Palace, in season 12. Portraits of famous couples such as Victoria and David Beckham, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, etc., from the National Portrait Gallery Collection, London, will be seen in the heart of Bucharest. The famous London Museum has the most extensive collection of portraits of some famous personalities.
From the 16th century until now, the portrait has been closely linked to love and desire and social recognition of relationships. Portraits are visual records of love, kinship, and memories of deceased or absent loved ones, and have always been offered as a sign of love. Love and relationships thus represent a theme with tradition in the history of portraiture, which will also be explored in Love Stories, through a selection of key works from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Lucy Peltz, curator „Love Stories”, National Portrait Gallery
Constantin Artachino (1870 – 1954), curator: Elena Olariu, an exhibition in partnership with the Bucharest City Museum
A prominent personality of Romanian history, Artachino is considered a master of Romanian Orientalism, of the Dobrogean brand. He stood out in the interwar period through silk brushwork, which characterized him, and works painted in clear, elegant lines under the sign of balance and harmony. Due to his family’s origin (the port of Artachi, on the Sea of Marmara, the Ottoman Empire), he travelled to the Balkan world and was one of its most skilled portrayers.
He studied at the Belle-Arte School, where he was a student of Theodor Aman. He continued his studies in Paris at the Julian Academy, where he was a colleague of Nicolae Vermont and Ştefan Luchian, with whom he befriended and formed artistic groups. Artachino worked in the village of Barbizon and the forest of Fontainebleau, following the example of Nicolae Grigorescu, whom he admired. Still he also travelled to London, Milan, Venice and Istanbul. He also painted a lot in Bulgaria, Sofia, Silistra and Balchik, Dobrogea or on the banks of the Danube.
Ion Alin Gheorghiu (1929-2001), the artist of the Suspended Gardens, curated by: Ana-Maria Smigelschi
Large abstract canvases, signed by one of the most significant painters of Romanian abstraction and postmodernism of the ideologizing period of the Cold War, Ion Alin Gheorghiu, will be exhibited in the Dacia-Romania Palace. Gheorghiu was born into a modest family of workers and had a turbulent life story. He entered the class of Professor Camil Ressu at the Nicolae Grigorescu Institute of Arts with an „exceptional” grade. Still, he finished the faculty without a diploma because the work „Creangă and Eminescu in Iași” was considered nationalist and formalist during socialist realism.
He was not accepted in the official exhibitions, being forced to unload potatoes in the yard at night, to work as a porter, all this time not having a workshop and painting with what he could until 1958, when he started to be invited to almost all essential exhibitions in the country. Very demanding with his art, he organized very few personal exhibitions. Andrei Pleșu signs the curatorial text of the exhibition.
Nymphs and Zombies from Romanian contemporary art, curator: Ruth Hibbard
There will also be an artistic battle at the Palace between two artists with opposed visions: Ondine Slimvoschi (b. 1982) vs. Paul Marat Baraka (b. 1994) in the exhibition „Nymphs and Zombies: Ondine’s Hope and Baraka’s Despair”. Ondine is an artist of serene mythology, of the bestiary of beautiful fairy tales, illustrating the artist’s active interest in the melancholia of 19th-century aesthetics. At the same time, Baraka focuses on Shaw’s subjects provocatively in a hyperrealistic style, both in painting and in sculptures. Baraka’s approach is also critical, highlighting the banality of evil through sarcasm and irony.
In addition to the four exhibitions, Art Safari will also exhibit a series of installations that complete the visiting experience. And the children have their own Art Safari in the Palace, which includes creative workshops and guided tours of the exhibitions.
Art Safari Program: June 30-September 10, 2023
• Thursday-Sunday – 12:00-21:00
• Night Tours – every Friday and Saturday from 22:00-1:00 (special guided tour experiences in all exhibitions and prosecco)
• Tickets: artsafari.ro or directly from the entrance
• Palatul Dacia-Romania, street Lipscani, no. 18-20, Bucharest
Founded in 1856, the National Portrait Gallery tells the story of Britain through portraits, using art to bring history to life and explore the present. From global figures to unsung heroes, the NPG collection is full of stories that have shaped and continue to shape a nation.
The gallery in St. Martin’s Place, London, is closed until June 22. All this time, essential construction works are taking place for the „Inspiring People” project, which will transform the Gallery, including a complete redevelopment of the building and the opening a new learning center. While the museum was closed, the National Portrait Gallery continued to exhibit the collection digitally and through a series of partnerships and collaborations across the country.
