Lecture: Surrealism in Romania: the forgotten heritage of the avant-garde

11 July 2025, 11.00

Join us for a lecture in the series Mature to Art dedicated to Surrealism in Romania, the artists representing this trend and their relationship with Western artists.

Surrealism is mainly associated with centres such as Paris and Brussels, but also in Bucharest and other Romanian cities in the 1930s and 1940s an experimental surrealist milieu developed. Although it was a short-lived phenomenon, it played an important role in Romanian culture, and today invites critical reflection on the history of European Surrealism. The lecture will introduce selected representatives of the Romanian Surrealist movement, both those active in Romania and those who co-created the Surrealist milieu in Western Europe. The work of such figures as Gellu Naum, Victor Brauner, Dolfi Trost and Gherasim Luca will be discussed.

The Mature to Art meetings, led by art historian and long-time ICC associateDr. Małgorzata Jędrzejczyk, are aimed at adult audiences, with a particular focus on mature audiences. The lectures analyze issues related to art history and culture in relation to the issues presented in the exhibition “One eye laughs, the other cries. Art from Romania in the Collection of Ovidiu Şandor”. This is an excellent opportunity for discussion and a deeper understanding of the presented artworks and their context.

The event is held in a hybrid form: stationary at the headquarters of the International Cultural Centre and online via the Zoom platform.

Participation in the lectures is free of charge.

Duration is approximately 60 minutes.

To receive a link to participate in the online meeting, please send your application to the following email address: warsztaty@mck.krakow.pl

Dr. Małgorzata Jędrzejczyk – art historian, curator. Studied art history at Jagiellonian University, Universität Wien and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Graduate of the interdisciplinary study program Environment-Technology-Society (UJ). Author of scholarly articles on 20th century art and architecture and publications in exhibition catalogs and journals. Co-editor of an anthology of image/body texts and the publication “Komponowanie przestrzeni. Rzeźby awangardy”. Co-author and curator of the artistic and scientific program “Exercising Modernity” (Pilecki-Institut Berlin). As part of her doctoral thesis being prepared at the Institute of Art History at the Jagiellonian University, she is conducting research on the concept of space in the work of Katarzyna Kobro.

The exhibition “One eye laughs, the other cries. Art from Romania in the Collection of Ovidiu Şandora” is co-organized by the International Cultural Centre in Krakow and the Romanian Cultural Institute and runs from March 8 to July 20, 2025.

Event within the framework of the Romania-Poland Cultural Season 2024-2025

The Romania-Poland Cultural Season 2024-2025 is organized by the Romanian Ministry of Culture and the Romanian Institute of Culture, on the Romanian side, and by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, in cooperation with the Polish Institute in Bucharest, on the Polish side.

For details, write to warsztaty@mck.krakow.pl or call 12 42 42 860.

The offer is under the auspices of the monthly magazine “Voice of the Senior”.

We would like to inform you that during classes, workshops, meetings, gallery lessons, lectures, photos may be taken for the needs of the International Cultural Centre in Cracow (including, among others, for documentation and information on the ICC website and on the ICC profiles on Facebook and Instagram). If you do not agree to this, please inform us in advance. Photos may include images of people participating in the classes and images of works made during the classes. Failure to provide written information to the Exhibition Center before the start of the classes is tantamount to consenting to the International Cultural Center in Krakow's use of the photos mentioned above.

The offer is under the auspices of the monthly magazine Głos Seniora.