Artist Vlad Nancă, represented by Gaep Gallery

Vlad Nancă, the artist who was part of the project team that represented Romania at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025, is represented by the Bucharest gallery Gaep, where he will make his exhibition debut in April 2026.

Interested in architecture and the transformation of the built environment, Nancă revisits 20th-century modernism to imagine possible versions of the future in response to present situations. His mixed media sculptures, installations and wall works often start from archival material or references from art and architectural history and construct new readings of modernist architecture and modernity, the space race, (failed) utopias and speculative scenarios of future ways of living.

Vlad Nancă initially established himself by using political and cultural symbols to critically examine nostalgia and the social consequences of the Revolution and the spread of capitalism in Romania in the early 2000s. Works such as “Original Adidas” (2003), “I don’t know what Union I want to belong to anymore” (2003) and “Proposal for the National Redemption Cathedral” (2004) are emblematic of this period in his practice.

More recently, he has increasingly turned his attention to space in its many forms – from public space and architecture to outer space. With an approach that is both retrospective and speculative, he has reflected on cultural heritage that could be taken to another inhabitable planet (the exhibition ‘Souvenirs from Earth’, 2015) and on the intersections between the visionary ideals of architectural collectives such as Superstudio and the realities of Romania in the 1980s (‘Vis-à-vis’, 2019). Similarly, he has investigated the spatial race, the folkloric and vernacular manifestations of modernity, and the connection between nature and technology (“In the Natural Landscape the Human Is an Intruder”, 2018), as well as the voices that might control the future and its imaginary (“A Map of the World as Seen by Him”, 2022). In such projects, he consistently brings to light local micro-histories passed by, proposes the human body as a timeless unit of measurement of space, and conceptualizes the future as a multilayered system of thought.

In 2025, in the Romanian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Vlad Nancă presented “Human Scale”, a collaborative project developed with Muromuro Studio. It positioned architectural drawing as a form of “collective intelligence”, emphasizing the central place occupied by the human presence in the architectural discourse of the 20th century.

First solo exhibition at Gaep

Gaep first presented a work by Vlad Nancă in the group exhibition “Memories and Prophecies” (November 2025 – January 2026), in which he participated as a guest artist. His first solo exhibition at the gallery will open on April 24, 2026.

Andrei Breahnă, co-founder of Gaep, says: “We are delighted to present Vlad Nancă’s first solo exhibition in Bucharest since his participation at the Venice Architecture Biennale and to accompany him in this new phase of his career. His works, with historical and fictional layers in which multiple versions of the past and the future coexist, will surely resonate with our audience”.

The artist explains, “I work with sculpture, installation and archival materials to explore how space shapes the human experience, from the scale of the body to architecture, urbanity and the future, often turning to recent history and 20th century modernism as tools to reflect on the present. While at first I used political and cultural symbols to address nostalgia, transition and the tensions between post-socialist realities and the spread of capitalism, my practice gradually evolved towards a broader investigation of public space, architecture and even cosmic space. Inspired by decorative and monumental art traditions, especially mosaics, I work with materials and techniques associated with permanence and presence in public space. Through archival source-materials and speculative or poetic scenarios, I question how ideals, systems and constructed forms influence our lives, placing the human body at the center of space, memory and responsibility for the future.”

Short biography Vlad Nancă

Vlad Nancă (b. 1979, Bucharest) studied at the National University of Arts, Photo-Video Department, Bucharest. Over the last two decades, his works have been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions in institutions such as FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Kunsthalle Bratislava, Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, MNAC Bucharest, Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu, City Museum of Ljubljana, Museion Bolzano, and in art and architecture biennials, including the 19th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale.

His most recent solo exhibitions were held at Galleria Il Ponte (Florence), Grotto Gallery (Bucharest), Sofia Institute of Contemporary Art, Kunsverein Ost (Berlin) and Suprainfinit (Bucharest). He is the winner of the Peter Jecza Award for Sculpture of the Year in 2025.

Main image: Vlad Nancă, “Future Perfect II”, 2025, Murano glass mosaic on metal frame, 92.5 x 121 x 30 cm; © Vlad Nancă. Photo: Alexandru Paul. Cour courtesy of the artist and Gaep Gallery