The “Monstrul, pătratul și hohotul” Catalog

The “Monstrul, pătratul și hohotul” catalog offers a fresh perspective on recent Romanian art, reconfiguring the museum’s collection after more than five years. Curated by Dan Popescu, this catalog captures the curator’s text as a guided tour, accompanied by reproductions of exhibited works and installation views, reinterpreting the classical historical framework through a new interpretive lens.
The main thesis of this curatorial essay identifies two major stylistic directions in contemporary Romanian art: an interest in archaic visual forms and the use of humor. Archaic art is depicted as a means of staging the sacred, evoking an essential and generative reality beyond this familiar world. The catalog explores how this archaic aesthetic manifests in two stylistic approaches: the monstrous and the geometric. Additionally, humor is showcased as an enduring presence in local visual art, with roots in the interwar period, and more boldly embraced after 1989, seen as both a survival strategy and a way of enduring complex historical times.