Jens Trimpin’ sculpture, Aniela Firon’s paintings, and Liliana Basarab’s ceramics feature in the new season at MNAC
Five exhibitions investigating cultural memory, the dynamics of contemporary art, and the destiny of recovered artistic voices can be seen in the 2025 winter exhibition season at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest.
The exhibition program brings to the fore Jens Trimpin’s sculptures, in which geometric forms are subtly destabilized, takes a look at the last 16 years of Liliana Basarab’s artistic practice, a period in which she explored the expressive potential of ceramics in relation to identity and cultural memory, and focuses on the art of Aniela Firon, one of the most enigmatic voices of the ’80s generation.
Aniela Firon retrospective
This season’s main exhibition brings the public one of the most enigmatic figures in contemporary Romanian art, in a large-scale, retrospective solo exhibition – “Aniela Firon. Dance and the Blind Man” (exhibition concept and design: Călin Dan, curator: Irina Radu).
Photo: curatorial
The retrospective of Aniela Firon work brings together works exhibited for the first time in decades.
The painting of Aniela Firon, a singular figure in the complex landscape of the 1980s generation, stands out with an intensely confessional discourse, articulated through a neo-expressionist figurativism built on tension and self-revelation.
Photo: curatorial
After a meteoric rise on the art scene, Aniela Firon disappeared, swallowed up by a tragic fate, according to the exhibition organizers. Her fate remained a mystery until today, four decades later, when we can finally engage with the artist’s works, saved from destruction and brought together in this extensive retrospective presented on the third floor of the museum.
The exhibition can be seen until March 29, 2026.
Liliana Basarab and the ceramic technique
On museum’s top floor, in the Auditorium Hall, is presented the exhibition “Hard Surfaces, Slanted Thoughts” (curator: Mălina Ionescu), offering an overview of Liliana Basarab’s artistic practice over the last 16 years, a period during which the artist focused primarily on experimenting with the possibilities offered by ceramic techniques.
Photo: curatorial
Between a contemplative-ironic attitude and a militant one, between an interest in cultural heritage and a taste for the incidental, the random, and the unpredictable, Liliana Basarab’s project is both about resistance and about creating/recovering an (artistic) identity that precedes—and transcends—feminism.
Photo: curatorial
The exhibition is open until February 1, 2026.
Jens Trimpin, exponent of abstract minimalism
MNAC continues its research into the role played by abstract art in 21st-century visual culture with the exhibition ”Jens Trimpin. Tor” (curator: Călin Dan), presented on the fourth floor of the museum.
Photo: curatorial
The works of German sculptor Jens Trimpin draw the viewer into a trap in which each geometric form is undermined by subtle interventions.
Photo: curatorial
The asymmetries are false, the perfectly flat and meticulously finished surfaces are in fact subtly curved, the sharp edges are soft, and the seemingly immobile sculptures can enter into a surprising rotation around their own axis, says Călin Dan.
The exhibition can be seen until March 29, 2026.
The Twist
On the ground floor of the museum and in the Marble Hall lies the exhibition “The Twist. The Triumph of the Province, the Twilight of Empires,” curated by Călin Dan and Celia Ghyka, which presents to the public a complex research on the cultural and visual history of the allegorical motif of the twist, illustrated through an unconventional ensemble of archaeology, decorative arts, clothing, ethnographic products, and mass-produced industrial goods that establish meaningful dialogues with contemporary artworks from the collection of the National Museum of Contemporary Art and from private collections.
The exhibition can be visited until February 15, 2026.
On the second floor of the museum, the exhibition “Posters of the Golden Age,” presented inside the MNAC collection’s visitor-accessible storage facility— “Leviathan. Inside the Collection” (concept: Călin Dan, curator: Irina Radu), offers the public a unique perspective on the phenomenon of propaganda graphics through a selection of projects and poster mock-ups from the museum’s collection, most of which date from the 1970s and 1980s.
