Maxim Dumitraș Exhibition: Circumscribed Absences (Sculpture)
The Cluj-Napoca Museum of Art, a public cultural institution operating under the authority of the Cluj County Council, together with the Nod Cultural Association, is organizing the exhibition Circumscribed Absences by artist Maxim Dumitraș, on view from 8 to 25 October 2026. The opening will take place on Thursday, 8 October 2026, at 6:00 p.m., in the Museum’s temporary exhibition galleries. The exhibition has been curated in collaboration with Mihai Pop.
“For Maxim Dumitraș, sculpture begins where matter ceases to be sufficient. It does not occupy space; rather, it places space under tension, transforming emptiness from an absence into a form of presence. The circle is not geometry, but the memory of a beginning, a circuit of form that continually returns to its own origin. In Circumscribed Absences, the artist does not carve emptiness out of matter, but delineates one void within another. This is the source of the profound paradox of this sculpture: what appears solid ultimately becomes yet another form of absence. Gravity is thus suspended, and the object loses its weight in order to acquire another kind of density — that of the idea. In this transition from matter to weightlessness, Brâncuși is not a model, but a threshold. The shadow becomes the form’s second existence, the place where the material object begins to negotiate its departure from matter. Using minimal means, Dumitraș constructs a sculpture of the threshold: between solid and void, between the visible and the invisible, between existence and non-existence. And what ultimately remains is not the object, but the intelligent tension between what we see and what the form compels us to think.” (Mihai Pop)
Born on 27 September 1958 in Sângeorz-Băi, Maxim Dumitraș is a sculptor and visual artist whose artistic career spans more than four decades and is distinguished by a sustained concern with the relationship between matter, space, memory, and identity. Educated within the Romanian art scene, he has developed a career that combines sculptural research, interventions in public space, and participation in numerous artistic projects and events both in Romania and abroad.
He pursued his artistic studies at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, later completing a master’s degree and a doctorate in sculpture at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts in Iași. His academic training helped consolidate an artistic practice in which sculpture is approached both as an autonomous discipline and as a means of investigating the relationship between human beings, nature, and the spaces they inhabit.
A member of the Union of Visual Artists of Romania and the International Association of Art (Paris), Maxim Dumitraș has participated throughout his career in numerous solo and group exhibitions, biennials, and sculpture symposia in Romania, in many European countries, as well as in Egypt and Turkey. His exhibition activity has been documented since 1979, when he exhibited at the “Ștefan Luchian” Gallery in Botoșani. This was followed by solo exhibitions in Bistrița, Cluj-Napoca, Lausanne, Bucharest, Timișoara, Kassel, Mirepoix, Târgu Jiu, Chișinău, Bușteni, Sibiu, and Iași. In 2023, he exhibited at the Arcade 24 Gallery in Bistrița, and in 2025 he presented works in Venice.
Exhibitions held in museums and major cultural venues occupy an important place in his career. These include Circumscribed Absences, presented in 2021 at the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, as well as exhibitions at the National Art Museum of Moldova in Chișinău, the Art Museum in Târgu Jiu, and the Art Museum in Timișoara. In 2005, at the Simeza Gallery in Bucharest, the artist presented the project Job, while in 2012 he exhibited at Galerie La Porte d’Amont in Mirepoix, France.
His participation in group exhibitions and international events further complements this exhibition record. His works have been presented in contexts such as I Am Romanian at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel; the ceramics exhibition at Cotroceni Palace; the International Salon in Reșița; and the project The Real and the Possible, organized at Galla Gallery in Bucharest. The artist has also participated in sculpture and art biennials in Romania and abroad, including the Cairo Biennale (2008), the Sculpture Biennale in Salas, Spain (2009), the Totem Biennale in Târgu-Mureș (2010), and the National Biennale of Small Sculpture in Cluj-Napoca (2011).
A distinct chapter in Maxim Dumitraș’s artistic activity is his participation in international sculpture symposia, an experience that has given him the opportunity to work directly within natural environments and to develop monumental works in relation to specific sites. He has participated in symposia held in Romania, France, Turkey, Germany, and Egypt, including the “George Apostu” International Symposium in Bacău (1999), the “Interarteast” International Art Symposium in Târgu-Mureș (1996), and symposia in Saint-Martin-de-Seignanx, Bodrum, Gümüşlük, Bursa, and Aswan between 2006 and 2015. In 2021, he participated in the Via Transilvanica Sculpture Symposium at Tășuleasa, and in 2020 in the International Monumental Sculpture Symposium in Ploiești.
The monumental dimension of his work is also evident in the numerous pieces installed in public spaces. These include Cămașă-Deal, created in andesite and installed in Baia Mare/Tășuleasa and Hărman; Blue Interior, in marble, in Ploiești; Pietà, made of Corten steel and andesite in Măgura Ilvei; as well as Pietà in Salas, Spain; Column in Naumburg, Germany; and Inner Gaze in Gümüşlük, Turkey. His public works in Romania also include The Family, created in marble in Șanț, and Dwelling for Apostu, made of marble and metal in Bacău. One of his early works, Nest of Dreams, created in marble in 1984, is located in Sângeorz-Băi.
For his artistic activity, Maxim Dumitraș has received numerous distinctions, including the Restitutio Brâncuși Award (2022), the Ion D. Sîrbu Award (2019), the Mihail Grecu Medal awarded by the National Art Museum of Moldova in Chișinău (2018), the “Constantin Brâncuși” National Award (2017), the “Constantin Brâncuși” Sculpture Award in Chișinău (2010), the “George Apostu” Excellence Award in Bacău (2010), the “Constantin Brâncuși” Excellence Award (2006), the “Mihail Grecu” Special Prize for Sculpture at the Saloons of Moldova (2004), the “Ion Irimescu 100” Commemorative Medal (2003), the “Earth and Art” Award of the Romanian Museum of Agriculture (2000), and the Artexpo Foundation Award in Bucharest (1998). His distinctions also include the Order of Cultural Merit and the Grand Prize for Film, awarded in 1994 for the artistic actions The Building and The Tower of Babel.
Maxim Dumitraș’s career thus reveals a sculptural practice shaped through a dialogue between local experience and international engagement. His sustained presence in exhibitions, biennials, and symposia, together with the numerous works he has created for public spaces, defines the profile of an artist concerned not only with the sculptural object itself, but also with its relationship to place, memory, and community.
From this perspective, his sculpture unfolds both within museum and exhibition spaces and in the landscape, where matter becomes an instrument for articulating cultural memory and establishing a direct relationship with space. Maxim Dumitraș’s artistic activity therefore forms part of a long-term trajectory characterized by continuity, mobility, and experimentation, in which sculpture is investigated through a wide range of forms and materials, from marble, wood, lead, and metal to andesite and Corten steel. From his first exhibitions in the 1970s to his recent international projects and exhibitions, his work reflects an enduring concern with the permanence of matter, the memory of place, and sculpture’s capacity to transform and redefine space.
