Invitro

Before Everything Disappears

Maria Guțu’s exhibition at Celulele Invitro | Bucharest | Malmaison.

March 13 - April 40, 2026

Photo credit:

Maria Guțu’s affinity for the tragedy and the grieving sigh of these people transcends time and space turning the right second, the camera, and the recording into weapons of memory. The fact that these photographs are taken in the Republic of Moldova is only a minor detail in the biography of the artist and of the protagonists; more important is that they speak of a reality intrinsic to human tragedy and to the immemorial uprooting brought about by social, cultural, and, above all, political factors. The estrangement from the familial and the familiar causes, in turn, unhealed wounds, existential fractures and sufferings. The subliminal end of the artist’s enterprise is interweaving remembrance with emotions by means of states of mind. The focus is the exploration of the border between wound and suffering which lies at the core of harmonious reconciliation or inexhaustible reflection like the white and the black developed on paper. The photographs become the throbs of a gravity by which Maria Guțu rediscovers herself, a gravity dipped into the colours and intimate memories of the passing of time.
Text: Alexandru Davidian
Translation: Bertha Savu

Maria Guțu’s affinity for the tragedy and the grieving sigh of these people transcends time and space turning the right second, the camera, and the recording into weapons of memory. The fact that these photographs are taken in the Republic of Moldova is only a minor detail in the biography of the artist and of the protagonists; more important is that they speak of a reality intrinsic to human tragedy and to the immemorial uprooting brought about by social, cultural, and, above all, political factors. The estrangement from the familial and the familiar causes, in turn, unhealed wounds, existential fractures and sufferings. The subliminal end of the artist’s enterprise is interweaving remembrance with emotions by means of states of mind. The focus is the exploration of the border between wound and suffering which lies at the core of harmonious reconciliation or inexhaustible reflection like the white and the black developed on paper. The photographs become the throbs of a gravity by which Maria Guțu rediscovers herself, a gravity dipped into the colours and intimate memories of the passing of time.

INVITRO began as a gesture of proximity.
Before becoming an exhibition space, INVITRO emerged from long-term relationships with artists and galleries — from years of looking, learning, collecting, and staying close to artistic practices as they evolve.
Founded in 2019, INVITRO was conceived as a space where invited galleries and curatorial voices from other cities and countries could temporarily relocate their programs, bringing with them distinct contexts, ethics, and rhythms of work.
Six years later, this intention has taken form through 25 exhibitions.
Operating as a bicephalous organism, INVITRO unfolds through two equally active exhibition spaces — in Bucharest and Cluj.
From INVITRO Bucharest (Malmaison) to INVITRO Cluj (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), the platform has functioned as a site of encounter: between artists and audiences, between local scenes and other geographies, between generations, media, and ways of working.
In 2025, this ongoing process unfolded through six exhibitions:
— Daniel Moldoveanu – Rude Awakening, at Celulele INVITRO Bucharest
— Radu Comșa – Blue, at INVITRO Cluj
— Jonas Staal – Scaleless Models, curated by Mihnea Mircan, at Salonul de Proiecte
— George Semeniuc – Recent paintings (maybe “The Dinner”), at Celulele INVITRO Bucharest
— Stefano Calligaro – Poetricks (Big and Smalls), at INVITRO Cluj
— **Ștefan Ungureanu | George Anghelescu – Kenopsia and Metanoia (ongoing), at INVITRO Cluj
Together, these projects reaffirmed INVITRO’s commitment to artistic research, experimentation, and sustained dialogue — while allowing different curatorial, artistic, and gallery voices to temporarily inhabit its framework.
What connects these exhibitions is not a style or a theme, but a way of working:
listening closely to artists, respecting the autonomy of collaborators, and allowing exhibitions to remain open, porous, and alive.
As the year draws to a close, we look back not to summarize, but to acknowledge continuity:
25 exhibitions, 6 years of work, and a network of relationships still in motion.
INVITRO remains an open structure.
The archive stays active.
The work goes on.

Kenopsia and Metanoia | Ștefan Ungureanu și George Anghelescu
Curator: Dan Popescu

Ștefan Ungureanu and George Anghelescu are millennials. What is the specific difference of Gen Y artists from their predecessors? To my mind, it is something that pertains to how⎯most of them being urban⎯they relate to the future and the past. To Gen Ys, the past does not carry the dramatic power of tradition, and the future is regarded with a mixture of optimism and melancholy. The present exhibition proposes two examples of affective-axiological visual positioning in relationship with the future and the past.

Kenopsia is the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people and life but is now empty and quiet. It is one of those feelings for which one would not even suspect that there is a term to describe it. Ștefan Ungureanu comes up with an image which captures this feeling and makes it even more ineffable, in mental landscapes which clearly suggest a fictional future. Despite looking like a landschaft reminiscent of a desert in Arizona, it bears the traces of a human terraforming and of a living which is still smoking, or which can still be glimpsed. It is the image of the melancholy of the future.

George Anghelescu points up the way millennials relate to the past. Reiterating a previously expressed idea, to Gen Ys the past is either something to be ignored or left behind by embracing the countless injustices. Visual metanoia is George’s obsession. No nation remains untainted by its history, and Anghelescu proposes in each constructed image a tension between horror and beauty which works better than many history treatises.
(Text: Dan Popescu / Translation: Bertha Savu)

📸 Moments from the opening of POETRICKS (BIG AND SMALLS) by Stefano Calligaro, presented by UNA gallery (Piacenza / Milano) at INVITRO Cluj.

A poetic play with language, translated into visual and material form — including Poetrick No.2615 materialized as a wallpainting by Radu Comșa.

Stefano Calligaro is an artist and “poetry designer” whose work explores the transformative potential of language. Since 2019, he has pared back the eclectic aesthetics of his practice to focus entirely on what he calls Poetricks — a form of clandestine, ambiguous (anti)poetry, free from fixed interpretations and constantly questioning both the value of writing and the meaning of being an artist today.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this sharp, witty, and collaborative reflection on what language can become.

📷 Photo credit: .dox / .studio

📸 From the INVITRO archive: Sward House HOSTEL, 2022
Cristian Răduță
Presented by Sandwich Gallery

📍 INVITRO CLUJ
October 8 ____ November 30, 2022
⏪ Throwback to 3 years ago, when Cristian Răduță transformed the space with a sculptural ecosystem inhabited by absurdity, humor, and hybrid forms.

🧭 About the artist
Cristian Răduță (b. 1982) lives and works in Bucharest. His practice spans sculpture, object, and installation, shaped by hypothetical or surreal situations and characters, approached with humor.
He often explores the tensions and harmonies between industrial and bricolage materials, allowing for intuitive, layered constructions.

📷 Exhibition documentation:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1269837428481711&type=3

📸 Opening albums:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1192734954688580&type=3
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1184967638798645&type=3

🎥 Opening event page:
https://fb.me/e/2yGHtHZH6

📸 Photo credit: Pavel Curagău .curagau / YAP studio .studio