Strength and Visibility: Curating Women Artists between Past and Present

Museum of Art Brașov, Romania and  4Culture Association invites you to the conference “Strength and Visibility: Curating Women Artists between Past and Present”, a dialogue between Andreea Căpitanescu and Olivia Nițiș. The discussion offers a framework for reflection on visibility, continuity, and critical positioning, bringing to the forefront the need to recover and integrate the contributions of women artists into the broader narrative of Romanian art. Andreea Căpitănescu is a cultural producer, independent curator and artistic director, active since 2005. Founder of the 4Culture Association, she initiated eXplore Festival – the first contemporary dance and performance festival in Romania – and created the independent space WASP – Working Art Space and Production in Bucharest. Her activity is carried out within European networks and platforms, through programs that support contemporary artistic creation, international collaboration, artistic research, education and support for emerging artists. She holds a PhD in Visual Arts (UNARTE, 2024), a Master in Project Management in English (SNSPA, 2022), a Master in Contemporary Performance Direction (UNATC, 2005–2006) and a Bachelor’s degree in Choreography (UNATC, 2004). She was a danceWEB 2006 scholarship holder at ImPulsTanz Vienna. He curated the performing arts program of Europalia Romania (Brussels, 2019–2020) and coordinates projects such as Life Long Burning, Jardin d’Europe, Emerging Towards (Future) and Exploring Plurealities. Olivia Nițiș is a researcher at the “G. Oprescu” Institute of Art History of the Romanian Academy, coordinator of the Modern and Contemporary Visual Arts and Architecture department, independent curator, art historian. She is the vice-president of the Experimental Project Association, member of the International Association of Art Critics since 2009. She is interested in the various aspects of gender discourse in the historiography of Romanian art and in Eastern Europe, with contributions related to women artists and gender representation in modern and contemporary art, the relationship between art and politics, the relationship between art and science. She is the author, editor and co-editor of several articles and publications on contemporary art. She is the author of the volume “Marginal Histories of Feminist Art”, Vellant, Bucharest, 2014 and co-editor of a volume dedicated to the conceptual artist Decebal Scriba (Kettler, Germany 2017). She was co-curator (with Martina Munivrana) of the solo exhibition of Croatian artist Sandra Sterle at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb (MSU) in 2023, and in 2024 she was the initiator and curator of the Romanian-Czech conceptual art project A Spring of Hope a Winter of Despair (Faber, Timișoara and Pragovka, Prague). The event is part of the project “Virtual Museum of Art under Communism. Perspectives on a Controversial Heritage”, carried out by the Brașov Art Museum and co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration, which aims to open the artistic heritage of the communist period to critical and current interpretations. In this context, the discussion brings to attention the presence and contribution of women artists in the history of Romanian art, analyzing the way in which their works were collected, contextualized and viewed in relation to the dominant discourses of the era. The conference anticipates the opening of the “Tower of Strength” exhibition, which will be inaugurated at the Brașov Art Museum on December 5, 2025, and proposes an open dialogue between history, research and current artistic practice, within the Compulser Lab project initiated by the 4Culture Association and co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration.