MIRCEA NICOLAE - SHARDS
22.03.2023 - 14.05.2023

Exhibition conceived by Salonul de proiecte


Salonul de proiecte
Palatul Universul, Corp B, Floor 1
Actor Ion Brezoianu 23-25, Bucharest


Opening: Wednesday, March 22, 19.00

The present exhibition is part of an ongoing endeavour to return Mircea Nicolae to the public eye through a new selection of works that highlight his experimental method of working with various materials and aesthetic languages, on the one hand, and, on the other, his special working relationship with the written word, which for him played at least as important a role as visual forms of expression. The exhibition’s selection focuses not on art-criticism texts, but on understanding writing as a tool for self-analysis, for structuring his thinking about art, for strategic planning and organisation of the production of works and potential professional directions. But above and beyond all this, writing, as his artistic practice, was traversed by a poetic dimension which he viewed as intrinsically linked to everyday life.

This poetic dimension can be found in the way in which Mircea Nicolae approached the phenomenon of destruction, which preoccupied him throughout his career as an artist. Shards, the work that lends its title to the exhibition, is emblematic in this respect, because the artist returned to it in 2020, ten years after it was originally conceived, transforming it into a manifesto of fragility and the need for protection and healing. Works such as the series Glass Globes, begun in 2007, and the film Minimum Wage (700 RON) from 2010 link urban destruction to precariousness and hopelessness with regard to social equality and the opportunity for a dignified life. Whereas in the socialist period, such equality was an ideologically grounded projection, the years following the 1989 Revolution exacerbated individualism and fundamentally altered social relations. All these dynamics instill a different research direction which the exhibition highlights via works such as The Bus Stop series of photographs or the intervention in the staircase of the block of flats where he lived, titled How Bread Is Made (2014).

The constellation of works synthesizes both a spatial and methodological parcours connecting the urban space and the immediate surroundings (the staircase) with the studio practice (his own apartment) and the interiority of the mind, to which we gain access through texts. The selection of works from the exhibition demonstrates Mircea Nicolae’s versatility, his constant openness to the new working media that he learned by himself, and which has been a source of both frustration and satisfaction to him. From his objects that involved “alchemical,” material and conceptual, transformations to the rigour of his large-format photography, to the complex scripts for his video works and the performative actions that embraced randomness and unpredictability, the artist ended up approaching the traditional medium of painting with the same seriousness and dedication. Although he often found the production of his own works demanding, Mircea Nicolae equally cultivated detachment from his objects, reflecting a type of generosity seldom encountered in the artistic community.

This exhibition is organized in tandem with the exhibition Mircea Nicolae – Small Things, Precious Things, open at the Timișoara Garrison between 17 February – 23 April 2023, as part of the inaugural event of Timișoara 2023 European Capital of Culture.

Ionuț Cioană (1980-2020), who worked as an artist under the name Mircea Nicolae, studied Literature at University of Bucharest (1998-2002) and completed an M.A. in the Anthropology of the Sacred Space at the ‘Ion Mincu’ Institute of Architecture and Urbanism (2002-2004). For his Ph.D. at the Bucharest National University of Arts, he was preparing a thesis on artistic work and freedom in the context of the Romanian arts scene between 1944 and 2010. In his artistic practice from 2006 to 2009, Mircea Nicolae developed a broad range of interventions in public and abandoned spaces. By means of anonymous gestures, these interventions aimed to examine the socio-political structure of the city of Bucharest, as well as the more private space of personal affective history. From 2010 to 2020, he produced a series of works showed in various contexts and venues, including Salonul de proiecte, Bucharest (2019); tranzit.ro/ bucurești (2018); Ivan Gallery, Bucharest (2017); Electroputere Gallery, Craiova (2015); Vienna Biennale (2015); Spațiul Platforma, Bucharest (2015); MUSAC, Leon (2012); Pinchuk Art Centre, Kyiv (2011); 32 Edgewood Avenue Gallery, New Haven (2011). His work as a curator included the exhibition Mattis Teutsch. Avant-Garde and Constructive Realism, at the Rezidența BRD Scena9, Bucharest, in collaboration with Szilárd Miklós (2019), and as an art critic he regularly published texts on the Scena9 editorial platform from 2016 to 2020.



Exhibition design: Larisa Sitar

Special thanks: Carmen Constantinescu, Andrei Cebotaru



This event is organised by the Salonul de proiecte Association as a part of the Mircea Nicolae. The Artist Is Absent project.

Partners: Timișoara Center for Projects, Ivan Gallery Bucharest, Scena 9

Sponsor: Corcova Roy & Dâmboviceanu

Cultural project co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund

The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or the manner in which the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.