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Recent art collection

Representatives of Recent Art from the Second Half of the 20th Century and the Beginning of the 21st Century in the Collection of the Cluj-Napoca Art Museum

Recent art in the collection of the Cluj-Napoca Art Museum reflects a wide range of aesthetic concerns. To offer a relevant, focused, and intelligible presentation, we have chosen to highlight only a few examples of artists. Of course, there is an extraordinary variety of aesthetic directions during this period: mec-art, arte povera, land art, body art, happening, environment, assemblage, minimal art—movements that sparked artists’ interest after 1960; conceptual art, eco-art, sociological art, American hyperrealism, dreamlike figuration, and street art—directions that stimulated creativity starting from the early 1970s; neo-expressionism, intermedialism, and postmodernism—significant orientations for the sensibility of the 1980s; video art, conceptual art, installation, performance, neo-Orthodoxy—catalysts of creativity in the 1990s; photo-realism, the new figurative, neo-pop art, or the so-called “Cluj School” contributed to the artistic revival, especially in painting, characteristic of the 2000s.

Without losing sight of the aesthetic transformations outlined above, the artists we will mention below illustrate both the concern for a new perspective on the meaning of artistic creativity and for understanding the specificity of this creativity through its relationship with its own traditions.

The ways these aims are realized target the reestablishment of connections with an internationally evolving contemporary art scene, as well as the revitalization of relations with Romanian and European modern art. Illustrative of these aims are those remarkable artists whose work covers the period from the second half of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century: Ioana Antoniu, Ion Bitzan, Geta Brătescu, Corneliu Brudaşcu, Ştefan Câlţia, Alexandru Chira, Marcel Chirnoagă, Victor Ciato, Onisim Colta, Octavian Cosman, Roman Cotoşman, László Feszt, Ion (Alin) Gheorghiu, Sorin Ilfoveanu, István Kancsura, Andor Kőmives, Ana Lupaş, Nicolae Maniu, Florin Maxa, Wanda Mihuleac, Ioan Aurel Mureşan, Georgeta Năpăruş, Ion Nicodim, Horea Paştina, Paula Ribariu, Ioan Sbârciu, Liviu Suhar, Radu Şerban, Vasile Tolan, and Titu Toncian.

Through numerous landmark creations, the patrimonial fund of recent art reflects the concerns of some of the most valuable contemporary artists, whose impact on the development of current art is decisive.