The most comprehensive Stefan Bertalan retrospective comes to Bucharest
“In the Rhythm of the World”, the most comprehensive retrospective dedicated to the work of Romanian artist Ștefan Bertalan (1930 – 2014), is presented at MARe/ Museum of Recent Art in Bucharest from February 6 to May 3, after its debut in Timisoara a year ago, organized by the Art Encounters Foundation.
The exhibition – now organized by MARe in partnership with Art Encounters and Esther Schipper Gallery (Berlin, Paris, Seoul) – is conceived and curated by Bernard Blistène, Honorary Director of the National Museum of Modern Art – Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Hundreds of works – paintings, works on paper, photographs, films, as well as an important volume of documents – are brought together, aiming to present the work of the neoavant-garde artist in a thorough and up-to-date manner.
About Stefan Bertalan
Ștefan Bertalan, born in the village of Răcăștia (Hunedoara County) in 1930 and died in Timișoara in 2014, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts “Ion Andreescu” in Cluj-Napoca between 1956 and 1962, after graduating he was appointed teacher at the Fine Arts High School in Timișoara. From 1970 to 1981, he taught at the Polytechnic University of Timișoara, in the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, which he left when he decided to emigrate. In 1986 he settled in Öhringen, near Stuttgart, where he lived until 2012, and since 1990 he has regularly returned to Timișoara.
In 1965, Bertalan founded Group 111 together with Roman Cotoșman and Constantin Flondor, probably the first experimental art collective in communist Romania, followed shortly after by the renowned experimental and interdisciplinary group Sigma (1969 – 1980), which he created together with Constantin Flondor and Doru Tulcan and which was joined by artists, thinkers and researchers from various disciplines. From 1964 to 2014, Bertalan was also a member of the Union of Fine Artists of Timișoara.
A leading personality of the Romanian neo-constructivist avant-garde of the late 1950s and 1960s, Ștefan Bertalan deepened his research in the field of cybernetics and systems in the 1970s, based on natural forms and organic, mineral and vegetal processes, which led him, about ten years later, to develop a true cosmology in which man and nature are interdependent.
Ștefan Bertalan’s works have been exhibited in numerous renowned institutions, including the Art Museum in Chisinau (2024); Mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna (2022); Kunstmuseum, Liechtenstein (2020); Art Museum in Timișoara (2012); Venice Biennale (1995); Institute of Architecture in Bucharest (1979).
Photo: exhibition “In the Mind of the World”, Stefan Bertalan, at Isho Timisoara; curatorial
