Brukenthal Museum exhibitions in 2025 – Chirnoagă, Țuculescu, Tolici and SCAF
Brukenthal National Museum organizes in 2025 exhibitions and special events at its premises, including incursions into the graphic universe of Marcel Chirnoagă, Ion Țuculescu, but also solo shows Roman Tolici and Sibylle Bergemann, Romania’s History in 100 Portraits and the sixth edition of SCAF – Sibiu Contemporary Art Festival, according to a response provided curatorial by the institution.
The museum registered 127,663 paying visitors last year. Since it did not use statistical tools to quantify the number of visitors from abroad who opted to visit the museum’s premises, it was indicated that 11.8% more foreign tourists arrived in Sibiu by October than in the same period of the previous year, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INS).
The most visited temporary exhibition was “Tatry. Wróblewski, Karłowicz, Wyczółkowski”, a project that presented the work of three artists who played a major role in Polish culture and art in the 19th and 20th centuries: Andrzej Wróblewski, Mieczysław Karłowicz and Leon Wyczółkowski. It registered 14,100 ticket payers.
During 2024, the Brukenthal National Museum organized and hosted 3 permanent exhibitions; 54 temporary exhibitions at its premises (16 MNB heritage; 11 with the heritage of other cultural institutions and private collections; 27 contemporary art projects); 16 temporary exhibitions and other exhibition projects organized in the Ursuline Monastery (property of the Catholic Archdiocese of Alba Iulia, Sibiu); 18 MNB exhibitions at other institutions or in the public space; 21 MNB participations in exhibitions organized by partners; 5 cultural programs and projects; 11 events for the public; conferences, book launches, film screenings, concerts and fairs.
Events in 2025
Minimum plan
I. Program of temporary exhibitions at venues
- Title: World of Magdalene
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, ground floor hall
Period: March – April 2025
Curator: Alexandra Goșnescu
Description: the exhibition capitalizes on the personality and creative periods of the artist Magdalena Rădulescu. The curatorial concept, has a biographical path centered on the generous collection of works held by the Brukenthal National Museum.
2. Platform: Minorities Matter
Title: Contemporary Hungarian graphic artists and designers from the collection of the Brukenthal National Museum
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, ground floor hall
Period: November – December 2025
Partners: HID Association/ Hungarian Cultural Center in Sibiu
Curator: Valentin Trifescu
Description: the exhibition brings to the public’s attention the curator’s research on the contemporary Hungarian artistic phenomenon. The research covers the graphic art collections of the Brukenthal National Museum.
3. Title. Redefining moral values in Marcel Chirnoagă’s graphic universe
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, Hall with columns
Period: April – May 2025
Curator: Nicoleta Niță
Description: the exhibition explores the complex theme of social masks and the ambiguity of human nature in contemporary society. The 41 etchings signed by Marcel Chirnoagă not only reflect, but also analyze the depth and implications of once profound and provocative ideas that have now been transformed into banalities and platitudes in public discourse. Marcel Chirnoagă (1930-2008), appreciated as a master of line, light and shadow, consolidated his reputation with his cycle of engravings “Apocalypse”, today considered an essential landmark in Romanian art of the 20th century. The artist highlights how fundamental concepts – good and evil, freedom, justice and beauty – were distorted in a historical context dominated by dictatorship and oppression.
4. Title: Through the eyes of Winckelmann: nostalgia for the classical world in works from the collections of the Brukenthal National Museum
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, 2nd floor
Period: July – August 2025
Curator: Alexandra Postelnicu
Description: the project aims to give visitors the opportunity to relive the splendor of the ancient world and its rich artistic production, following the ideas and theories of the German art historian and archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768). Works were selected from the graphic art collections (Italian, German, Dutch and Transylvanian), as well as from the decorative art, archaeology and Brukenthal Library collections. A relevant aspect of this exhibition is the analysis of the contrasting theories of Winckelmann and Giovanni Battista Piranesi, highlighting the intellectual debate of the time on the supremacy of Greek art over Roman art and vice versa. The exhibition also diversifies, highlighting Winckelmann’s connections with prominent figures such as Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and, in a hypothetical context, Samuel von Brukenthal himself. Franz Neuhauser is particularly interesting, not only as a fervent supporter of Winckelmann’s thinking and an admirer of classical art, but also as a collector of numerous casts of the most splendid Greek and Roman statues, which are now in the museum’s collection. The lithographs in the Neuhauser collection will offer visitors a complete visual incursion into the aesthetics of classical antiquity, allowing them to appreciate the beauty and formal perfection of the works that inspired Winckelmann in the formation of his vision of art.
5. Title: How Samuel von Brukenthal built his library
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, library room
February – December 2025
Curators: Alexandru Ilie Munteanu, Radu Teuceanu
Description: the project proposes a historical incursion into the birth and development of the library of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal. The exhibition continues the Brukenthal Incunabula exhibition format and is divided into 11 episodes, one for each month. Each month a book from the collection of Samuel von Brukenthal will be exhibited together with one or more catalogues from the bookshops/licenses where the baron acquired the volumes or from the decade of acquisition. These books and catalogs will be accompanied by an informative text.
6. Title: Oriental carpets from the collection of the Brukenthal National Museum
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, hall with columns
Period: July – August 2025
Curators: Alexandru Sonoc, Adrian Luca
Description: the exhibition aims to capitalize on the results of research over the last decade on the typology, chronology and cultural-historical importance of the Old Anatolian carpets in the museum’s collection, as well as on the attribution of new Anatolian carpets (after 1800) and of less studied oriental carpets such as Caucasian, Central Asian and Balkan kilims. Another aim of the exhibition is to publicize the donations of Oriental carpets after 2010.
7. Title: childhood “golden age”
Venue: History Museum Hall 14
Period: June – August 2025
Curator: Andreea Corca
Description: the exhibition proposes the display, in many cases for the first time, of pieces from the Modern Contemporary and Recent History collections relevant to the theme under discussion: the history of childhood in Sibiu, in the last decade of the communist period.
8. Title: Archaeological research in the Dacian fortress of Tilișca (2018- 2024)
Venue: History Museum Hall 14
Period: October – December 2025
Curators: Gheorghe Vasile Natea, Ecaterina Natea, Sergiu Chideșa, Adrian Georgescu, Florentin Perianu, Raluca Teodorescu
Description: the exhibition will include archaeological pieces discovered in the Dacian fortress of Tilișca during the researches of the last years together with photographs and drawings from the systematic researches financed by the Ministry of Culture through the PNCA.
9. Title: Evolution. Diversity. Stability
Venue: Natural History Museum
Period: April – August 2025
Curators: Ana-Maria Păpureanu, Nicolae Trif
Description: the exhibition illustrates the forms that molluscs have taken over geological eras: from examples of extreme morphological diversity to examples of preservation and stability of their geometry over hundreds of millions of years. Current specimens from the malacological collection will be shown in comparison with their ancestors from the paleontological collection.
10. Title: The Beatles
Venue: Natural History Museum, Multimedia Room
Period: September – November 2025
Curators: Silviu Țicu, Maria Stănciugelu
Description: the exhibition aims to introduce visitors to the huge world of the “little beetles”, showing them the abundance, diversity, importance and threats faced by the largest order of insects – Coleoptera.
11. Title: Red List. Time when species become extinct
Venue: Natural History Museum, Multimedia Room
Period: December 2025 – March 2026
Curators: Silviu Țicu, Maria Stănciugelu
Description: biodiversity in Romania has suffered significant losses due to human activities such as habitat destruction, pollution and climate change. Species such as the dropia and the flycatcher have completely disappeared due to over-hunting and habitat loss. In the insect world, the highly specialized Maculinea teleius butterflies are in decline due to habitat change and pesticide use. Freshwater fish, such as the common sturgeon, have disappeared due to overfishing and pollution. Amphibians and reptiles, such as great crested newts and salamanders, are vulnerable due to habitat loss and pollution. Reptiles such as the turtles Testudo graeca and Testudo hermanni face similar threats. In the world of molluscs, endemic species such as Drobacia banaticum are threatened by habitat destruction.
Through the exhibition, we aim to inform the public about endangered and extinct species in Romania, to emphasize the importance of biodiversity conservation by highlighting the role of the Red List in monitoring the conservation status of species.
12. Titlu: SCAF Sibiu Contemporary Art Festival, 6th edition
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of History, Museum of Natural History, Ursulines Monastery
Period: September 2025
Festival Director: Alexandru Chituță
Festival President: Ilie Mitrea
Curators: Alexandra Runcan, Ana Negoiță
Description. The event is organized with the support of the Ministry of Culture and under the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is the most important cultural diplomacy project dedicated to contemporary art from Eastern Europe. This year’s edition features Georgia.
II. Online exhibitions program
Title: Portrait of the Saxon priest in the Transylvanian village (British travelers, photographers and artists of the 19th and early 20th century)
Contents: accounts by John Paget, Hungary and Transylvania; with remarks on their condition, social, political, and economical, 1839; Arthur J. Patterson, The Magyars: their country and institutions, 1896; Charles Boner, Transylvania; its products and its people, 1865; Emily Gerard, The land beyond the forest: facts, figures, and fancies from Transylvania, 1888. Photograph from the collection of Documentary Graphics. Graphic works and paintings.
Mode: online
Bilingual presentation: Romanian and English.
III. Scientific Symposium
A multi-section event (art, history, natural history, restoration, museum education & marketing, museum management, etc.)
Expanded plan
I. Temporary exhibitions at externally funded venues
- Title: History of Romania in 100 portraits
Project coordinator: Art Safari
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, 2nd floor
Period: April – June 2025
Curators MNB: Alexandru Constantin Chituță, Alexandra Poponea
Description: The exhibition brings together a hundred masterpieces and rare objects representative of Romanian culture and evokes Romanian personalities, wars, uprisings, revolutions, intrigues, awards and innovations, through a selection of works of art and artifacts from the heritage of dozens of institutions and private collections.
2. Title: Geraldine Cario. Paris – Odessa. Journey in chiaroscuro
Project coordinator: German Cultural Center Sibiu
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art
February – March 2025
Curator MNB: Valentin Trifescu
Description: This exhibition invites visitors on a deeply personal and historical journey from Paris to Odessa, following the echoes of lost memories and the shifting borders of Europe. Selecting twenty images from more than 2,500 photographs taken during her journey, Cario creates a fragmented but deeply intimate narrative. She presents them as giant slides, retaining the proportions of traditional film photography but enlarging them to reveal an imprecise and grainy texture – an aesthetic choice that deliberately blurs the boundaries between past and present.
3. Title: Sibylle Bergemann
Project coordinator: German Cultural Center Sibiu
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, hall with columns
Period: September 2025
Curator MNB: Alexandra Runcan
Description: Sibylle Bergemann (August 29, 1941 – November 1, 2010) was a renowned German photographer, now recognized worldwide. In 1990, she co-founded the Ostkreuz photo agency. Perhaps Bergemann’s most important legacy is the series of black-and-white photographs she took of everyday life in East Germany as it has evolved over the years. Later, he made photojournalism of New York, Tokyo, Paris, and São Paulo; and more recently, switching from black and white to color, he traveled to Africa and Asia on assignments for Geo. In 1994, Bergemann’s talent was recognized when she became a member of the Berlin Academy of Art. In 2007, she organized an exhibition at the Museum für Photographie in Braunschweig. The Museum of Modern Art in New York holds twelve photographs by Bergemann.
4. Title: Retrospectiva Ion Țuculescu
Project coordinator: Art Safari
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, first floor hall
Period: November – December 2025
Curator MNB: Alexandru Constantin Chituță
Description: 60 years after the crucial exhibition of 1965 organized at Dalles Hall, Art Safari undertakes, under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture, a broad review and, perhaps, reconsideration of the work of the titan of the beginnings of Romanian contemporary art, of the “singular case” that was Ion Țuculescu. The exhibition “Ion Țuculescu. The amateur genius” presents over 100 representative works from the most important museums and private collections in the country and depicts, for the first time in an analytical and chronological way, the genesis, the path, the development and the unparalleled scope of the work of this remarkable artist.
II. Temporary exhibitions requested / proposed for touring:
Note: funding for these exhibitions is not included in the minimum plan
- Exhibition: Ion Vlad. Donation Eliza and Vladimir Cantaragiu
Venue: “Regina Maria” Museum Iași
May – July
Curators: Valentin Trifescu, Alexandru Constantin Chituță
III. Requests for exhibitions at the museum premises
- Exhibition: Boundaries in/crossed
Artists: Andrea Éva Szőcs (HU) and Georgiana Cozma (Ro)
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, ground floor
Period: May 2025
Curator MNB: Alexandra Runcan
External curator: Ana Negoiță
Partner: Center of Excellence in Image Studies (CESI), University of Bucharest
Description: “Boundaries in/broken” is an artistic research, from a visual perspective, which analyzes how human beings react when exposed to trauma, the discourse of the artists investigates the line between what can be considered acceptable, what can be endured and the area in which trauma produces irreversible changes and metamorphosis at the psychological level. The exhibition itinerary integrates a series of ceramic installations that are intended to generate a mirroring process, proposing an intimate perspective of probing trauma, a type of mediation that the public, incited to empathy and emotion, experiences in contact with the works.
2. Project: solo exhibition Antal Vásárhelyi (HU)
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, ground floor
Period: June 2025
Curator MNB: Valentin Trifescu
Description: Antal Vásárhelyi was born in 1950 in Szatmárnémeti (Satu Mare). In 1979 he moved to Hungary, where he started to work and dynamize the art scene. Since 2000 he is the President of the Hungarian Union of Engravers and Lithographers. He also runs Gallery IX in Budapest. His particular style, detailed, aligned, abstract at the same time, on the borderline between imagination, reality, structural and architectural symmetries creates parallel or imaginary universes for each of us.
3. Péter Balogh retrospective exhibition
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, ground floor
Period: July – August 2025
Curator: Alexandra Runcan
Description: Péter Balogh was born in Mișca, Bihor County, on July 30, 1920 and died in Bucharest on March 4, 1994. From 1948 to 1953 he attended the “Nicolae Grigorescu” Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest, under the guidance of professors CARAGEA Boris and BARASCHI Constantin Musat; the Academy of Decorative Arts in Budapest, Hungary (1941-1943). The exhibition brings to the fore Péter Balogh’s creations, which reveal the modesty of a man and the joy of a life devoted exclusively to sculpture. His captivating works speak of the artist’s passion and craftsmanship, bringing to the fore forms and ideas that challenge and inspire the public.
4. Project: retrospective exhibition Niu Herișanu
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, ground floor
Period: October 2025
Curator: Alexandra Runcan
Description: Niu Herișanu is one of Sibiu’s artists, who has distinguished himself over the years in several fields – he made music, then interior design, restored public and private spaces, but sculpture is the one that chose him, as he says himself.
5. Project: personal exhibition Rzeng Botond
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, first floor
June-July
MNB Curator: Alexandra Runcan
External curator: Ana Negoiță
Description: Botond Részegh (b. 1977) is a visual artist. He lives and works in Miercurea Ciuc and is represented by Yi Gallery in New York. Since 2011 he is the artistic director of Új Kriterion Gallery (Miercurea Ciuc). The artist renders a whole suite of characters, unidentifiable, anonymous who have the ability to represent various human typologies. The selection of the works presents a cumulative process that exemplifies a unitary artistic discourse consisting of series of works organized around a theme of visual research. Thus, the viewer is already familiar with Reszegh Botond’s anthropomorphic, expressionist-minimalist silhouettes. These give the exhibition route a specific dynamic, narrating an autobiographical experience.
6. Exhibition New Hope
Artist: Roman Tolici
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, first floor
Period: July – August 2025
Curator MNB: Alexandra Goșnescu
Partner: Mobius Gallery
Description: Roman Tolici was born in 1974, in the village of Ghetlova, Republic of Moldova (former USSR), in 1990, he arrived in Bucharest, thanks to a scholarship to study at the Art High School “Nicolae Tonitza”, granted by the Romanian State. Also in Bucharest he finalized his studies at the University of Art. Since the late 1990s, Tolici has experimented in the fields of literature, illustration and animation, comics and photography, and since the 2000s he has established himself as a painter through solo and group exhibitions.
History offers countless examples of hope proved vain: empires have collapsed, terrible disasters have shattered people’s hope, and terrible injustices have gone unpunished. And yet hope has always stubbornly stubbornly resurfaced. This new series explores precisely this abstract and fragile feeling we call hope – says Roman Tolici.
7. Project: personal exhibition Teona Todorel
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, first floor
Period: October 2025
Curators: Alexandra Runcan, Alexandra Goșnescu
Description: Teona Toderel (b.1992, Alba-Iulia) graduated from the Art High School in Târgu-Mureș, specializing in Painting (2011), studied at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca (2011 – 2014), which she graduated as class valedictorian, during which she studied with an Erasmus scholarship at Dokuz Eylül Üniveristesi Güzel Sanatlar Fakültesi, Buca/Izmir, Turkey (2013-2014). She followed a master’s degree at the University of Art and Design, Cluj-Napoca; Painting Department (2017 – 2018).
8. Exhibition. Lucian Binder & friends
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, hall with columns
Period: October 2025
Curator: Ilie Mitrea
Description: Lucian Binder Cătană, Romanian painter, representative of the German diaspora, meets again in Sibiu with his colleagues in a collective exhibition of graphics and painting.
9. Project: personal exhibition Doina Mihăilescu
Venue: Brukethal Plateau, columned hall
Period: November – December 2025
Curator: Alexandru Chituță
Description: an exhibition – “an essay of aesthetic, poetic, and theological investigation” (Doina Mihăilescu) – in which the themes are: “Stâlpnici”, “Logos”/”Pneuma”, “Crinii pustiei”, “Dansul Îngerului”, “Geometrii silenioase”, “Chipuri Isihaste”, etc.; through the chosen titles, the artist “proposes a necessary return to the theological meaning of existence, appealing to what she possesses and controls best: the language of forms, the discourse of colors, and perhaps above all, the artistic sincerity that defines her as a human being, placing her in the well-deserved place of talents and unbridled values” (Prof. Adrian Stoleriu, PhD).
10. Exhibition: Sleeping creatures
Artist: Gabriela Culic
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, arcade hall
Period: January-February 2025
Curator: Alexandru Chituță
Description: The aim of the exhibition is to introduce the viewer to a fantastical and eternal world of snow and frost. In this cold and eerie painting, the silhouettes of wolves, ravens and, fantastically, the silhouette of a female being or even the artist herself are present. The life and work of the artist in particular, but also of every individual in general, is often full of challenges and trials, sorrows and joys, anxieties and triumphs. The presence of these two animal creatures has countless symbols. The wolf has often been described as having a “third eye” and a “sixth sense.”
11. Project: personal exhibition Claudia Chelaru
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, arcade hall
Period: March – April 2025
Curator: Alexandra Runcan
Claudia Chelaru is a visual artist living and working in Cluj-Napoca. She graduated from the Graphic Design Department of the University of Art and Design of Cluj-Napoca in 2009 with a master’s degree. Her work covers editorial illustration, identity design, fashion illustration, character and environmental design for animation and indie games. Her body of work is unified by her use of organic patterns, rich textures, plants, geometry, eerie female characters, harsh pinks and sometimes deadly details. The artist’s compositions and portraits, with improbable contrasts and delicate lines, depict an illustrated magical realism, evoking a newfound fascination with the human experience.
12. Project: personal exhibition Simion Belu Făinaru
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, arcade hall
Period: May-June 2025
External curator: Ana Negoiță
Curator MNB: Alexandra Runcan
Description: Belu-Simion Făinaru (b. November 6, 1959, Bucharest, Romania) is a Romanian-Israeli sculptor and installation artist living in Haifa and Antwerp. From the very beginning of his career, the artist has drawn on the cultural heritage and symbolism of the Mosaic religion, whose millennia-old traditions are a vast source of inspiration for the artist. Belu Simion Făinaru seeks to materialize certain transcendental notions such as “Light” and “Identity”, transposing them into the physical world. Another very important aspect of the artist’s creation is the examination of social issues and the exploration of the relationship between art and marginalized members of society.
13. Project: personal exhibition Irina Ene
Venue: Brukenthal Palace, arcade hall
Period: July-August 2025
Curator: Raluca Cobuz
Description: “Most of the time, the concept is more important than the aesthetics of the work, but I don’t ignore the aesthetics altogether. Somehow I try to combine materials, and words, and concept, experiments, performance. Basically I’m always trying to find the right recipe for a particular project. I’ve worked with blood, I’ve worked with oil, I’ve worked with lipstick, with stone. Today I worked with photography, for which I had a photographer collaborator, Paul Brus, I worked with video images, for which Gabriel George helped me, I did oil painting, I had concept, I had lyrics and presentation”, summarizes Irina Ene’s way of working.
14. Exhibition: How the earth breathes
Artist: Dan Mihalcea
Venue: Natural History Museum, multimedia room
February – March 2025
Curator: Bogdan Runcan
Description: How the Earth Breathes is a traveling photography project that has three objectives: to highlight an artistic work, to showcase Romania’s natural heritage and to draw attention to the contamination of the environment with materials that can negatively influence the natural function of ecosystems.
