The exhibition "Șerbana Drăgoescu. Game for people" 9 June-1 October 2024

The National Art Museum of Romania invites you to the opening of the exhibition "Șerbana Drăgoescu. Joc pentru semeni" on Saturday, June 8, 2024, at 18.00, at the Museum of Art Collections (Calea Victoriei no. 111). The art exhibition brings to the public's attention the fine art work of Șerbana Drăgoescu, who has marked the evolution of contemporary tapestry at national and international level. Curators: Liliana Chiriac, head of the Art Collections Museum and Ilinca Damian, curator.

Șerbana Drăgoescu (1943-2013) grew up in an artistic environment, as the daughter of the painter Radu Drăgoescu and a graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts "Nicolae Grigorescu". She took part in an important exhibition of Romanian tapestry in Latin America between 1969 and 1971, focusing on conceptual art. Her creation was inspired by tradition and history, with impactful experimental interpretations.

Since 1970 she has participated in numerous art exhibitions in Romania and abroad, standing out in 1977 at the Biennale of Tapestry in Lausanne with the piece "The Match Game", which was selected along with 64 other works out of a total of 1054. At the time, tapestry as an artistic genre was in the process of reinvention and refinement, emphasising the importance of the artistic concept through the beauty and nobility of the materials.

Șerbana Drăgoescu donated the house in which she lived and 192 art objects to the National Art Museum of Romania in her will in 2014. Thus, the patrimony of the Art Collections Museum section was enriched with the "Șerbana Drăgoescu Donation", composed of painting and graphic works signed by Radu Drăgoescu and other artists of his generation, as well as painting, graphic, tapestry and object books by the artist.

The donation was opened to the public in December 2015, in two rooms, one of which is dedicated exclusively to the artist's work and the other to the artist's family and friends.

The temporary exhibition "Șerbana Drăgoescu. Game for people" presents about 20 works of conceptual art: tapestries, tapestry projects, object books and graphic works from the patrimony of the National Art Museum of Romania, Șerbana Drăgoescu Donation. The pieces illustrate the artist's contribution, from the 1970s, when she established herself through a new, three-dimensional and experimental plastic conception, abandoning the two-dimensional wall tapestry, until the post-December period, when she produced small-scale object books and tapestries.

In the three exhibition rooms, the artist's work is presented thematically, chronologically and by type of material or technique, starting with her most important work "The Match Game" (1977), also called "Game for the Souls", along with 19 other flag-tapestries entitled "Flames" (1974-1980), 7 textile strips entitled "Eternal Return" (1978), the tapestries "Wings", representing a symbol of transcendence towards a higher aesthetic space, tapestry projects, as well as the object-book "Continuous Present" (1988-1991), with 42 plates representing collages from the press of the period mentioned and from the book "A Lucky Man" by Octavian Paler, over which the artist intervened graphically.

The exhibition "Șerbana Drăgoescu. Game for people" can be visited until 1 October 2024, at the Museum of Art Collections, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, between 10.00-18.00, Saturdays and Sundays, between 11.00-19.00.

Admission is free on the first Friday of the month.