On Duty. The Dr. Sorin Costina Collection.
From
24 September 2026 00:00
until
16 February 2027 18:00
Posted by MNAR
Curator: Erwin Kessler
Coordinators: Alina Petrescu, Liliana Chiriac
The National Museum of Art of Romania announces the opening of the exhibition On Duty. The Dr. Sorin Costina Collection, which will present to the public a selection of works from the most significant private collection of Romanian art dating from the 1970–1990 period.
Conceived as a dual exhibition hosted in two different MNAR buildings—the Kretzulescu Halls (entrance via Valter Mărăcineanu Street) from September 30 to November 22, 2026, and the Museum of Art Collections (111 Calea Victoriei) from October 2, 2026, to February 16, 2027—the exhibition is coordinated by Alina Petrescu (Head of the Modern Romanian Art Department) and Liliana Chiriac (Head of the Museum of Art Collections Department), and curated by Erwin Kessler. Bringing together 200 of the most significant works from Dr. Sorin Costina’s collection—which comprises around 1,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ceramic pieces—this dual exhibition at the MNAR presents the "canon" of post-1960s Romanian art to the public.
Assembled in Brad (Hunedoara County) but featuring prominent artists from Bucharest and across the country, the Dr. Sorin Costina Collection reflects a specific segment of the Romanian art scene during the communist regime: the artistic hierarchy known to everyone at the time—though never explicitly articulated—that constantly underpinned the cultural world dominated by the official art Dr. Costina consistently bypassed.
The collection’s unique character lies in the fact that it was guided by the very artists who defined that canon. The Sorin Costina Collection is, in effect, a record of how the Romanian art of that era represented itself; it is a canon constructed—through the agency of a collector-disciple—by the chosen artists, who were the protagonists and architects of their own cultural, aesthetic, and spiritual paradigms.
The exhibition features key figures of post-war Romanian visual culture and exceptional works by artists such as Horia Bernea, Ștefan Bertalan, Paul Gherasim, Silvia Radu, Vasile Gorduz, Ion Grigorescu, Florin Mitroi, Ioana Bătrânu, Paul Neagu, Florin Niculiu, Georgeta Năpăruș, Ion Dumitriu, Constantin Flondor, Sorin Dumitrescu, and many others—all of whom bear witness to the distinctive history of Romanian culture and society in the second half of the 20th century. The exhibition thus offers not only an overview of this canon but also a lucid, critical examination of the beliefs, aspirations, practices, clichés, and stylistic and ideological hybridizations that shaped Romanian art during the most turbulent period of communism.
"The Costina collection is divided into a section dedicated primarily to experimentation, study, the artistic laboratory, and neo-avant-garde research (in the MNAR’s Kretzulescu Halls) and a broad panorama of the artistic mastery with which the artists of the era sought refuge in spirituality, aestheticism, emotion, and (self-)irony (in the halls of the Museum of Art Collections), in order to cope with a regime that distorted beauty and stifled expression, freedom, and faith." — Erwin Kessler.
The exhibition is open according to the MNAR schedule as follows:
30.09 – 22.11.2026: Kretzulescu Halls, Calea Victoriei 49–53, entrance via Valter Mărăcineanu Street (opposite Kretzulescu Church): Wednesday–Friday 10:00–18:00, Saturday–Sunday 11:00–19:00.
02.10.2026 – 16.02.2027: Museum of Art Collections, Building B: Monday, Tuesday, Friday 10:00–18:00, Saturday, Sunday 11:00–19:00.
Access to the exhibition requires the purchase of a ticket priced at 32 lei, valid for both locations.
