Geta Brătescu, one of Romania’s most important contemporary artists, will represent her native country at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Her project Geta Brătescu—Apariţii (Geta Brătescu—Appearances), selected by the culture ministry from three finalists, will be curated by Magda Radu, a curator at Romania’s MNAC National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest.
This won’t be the first time at Venice for the nonagenarian artist, who looks back at an art career spanning half a century: Brătescu participated in the group show staged at the Romanian Pavilion for the 1960 Venice Biennale. She also exhibited at the Central Pavilion of the 2013 Venice Biennale, curated by Massimiliano Gioni.
Brătescu, a conceptual artist, works in a wide range of mediums including drawing, photography, film, textile work, and sculpture. Her work is in the collections of major museums such as the MoMA in New York, London’s Tate, and MUMOK in Vienna. Last year, the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Germany staged a retrospective exhibition of her oeuvre.
According to Romania Insider, this year’s selection committee included architect Attila Kim, the commissioner of the Romanian pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale; Cristian Alexandru Damian, from the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice; Igor Efrem Zanti, director of the European Design Institute in Venice; Fabio Cavallucci, director of the Luigi Pecci Contemporary Art Center in Prato, Italy; Călin Dan, director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest; independent curator ; and Anca Drăgoi, state secretary in the ministry of culture.