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Conferences, symposiums, colloquia, book launches
2023
Conference Mihai Fulger: Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in the world festival circuit. The festival of the New Romanian Cinema, Romanian Academy, 21 September 2023
International conference: Romanian Photography. Local perspectives and European trends, National Library of Romania & G. Oprescu Institute of Art History, 8 June 2023
Conference Virginia Barbu: Barbu Brezianu – contributions to the history of Romanian music, Romanian Academy, 16 June 2023
Conference Vlad Bedros: The Sermon of Pseudo-Amphilochius of Iconium on Circumcision and Its Iconographic Implications in Moldavia at the End of the 15th Century, Romanian Academy, 18 May 2023
Conference Cristina Cojocaru: "The value of Him who was priced..." – Russian Icons in the Romanian Territory in the 17th-18th Centuries, Romanian Academy, 27 April 2023
Researches on Romanian medieval and premodern art, 19th ed., G. Oprescu Institute of Art History & The National Museum of Art of Romania, 20-21 April 2023
Conference Raluca Partenie: Women's Hats in La Belle Epoque: Beauty and Representation, Romanian Academy, 30 March 2023
Book launch: In honorem Adrian-Silvan Ionescu 70. Colecție de studii și amintiri despre Adrian-Silvan Ionescu, Jockey Club Bucharest, 23 February 2023
Conference George-Andrei Butcă: Conductor George Georgescu – an international career in new documents, Romanian Academy, 23 February 2023
Conference Adrian-Silvan Ionescu: George Catlin: From an Indian tepee to a royal palace, Romanian Academy, 19 January 2023

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New book releases
Art and Society. Art readings 2022 (ed. by Katerina Gadjeva), Sofia: Institute of Art Studies – BAS, 2023, 478 p.

Soft Power of the Balkan Screens/Meka moć ekrana Balkana (editors: Nevena Daković and Aleksandra Milovanović), Faculty of Dramatic Arts – Institut for theatre, film, radio and television, Belgrade, 2022, 178 p.
Other news
Dr. Marian Țuțui, head of the “Dramatic Art and Cinema” Department within the Institute of Art History, serves as a member of the scientific board of the 15th international conference Cultural Heritage: Research, Valorization, Promotion (30-31, May 2023, Chișinău). On 30 May he will present online the paper Attempts to Map the Beginnings of Romanian Cinema: Five Hypotheses about the Author of the First Film Projection in Bucharest. Also, on 31 May, the film critic and historian will moderate the section dedicated to audiovisual arts. In the four sections of the scientific event organized by the Institute of Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Moldova, no less than 82 specialists from all fields of artistic research participate, representing eight countries: the Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, and the Republic of Moldova.
The programme and the abstracts of the conference are available at: https://ich.md/?p=7195 .
On 19 April 2023 the National Museum of Maps and Old Books, Bucharest, hosted the conference held by Dr. Elisabeta Negrău, researcher at G. Oprescu Institute of Art History, entitled Icons with Maps in the European Southeast: Connections between Cartography, Hagiography, and Identity in the 17th–18th Centuries. The lecturer presented a group of Greek icons dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, most of them less studied as yet; the icons incorporate maps or contain topographical representations of identifiable geographical sites, integrated into sacred iconography. Other materials discussed were the Palestinian altarpieces and the souvenir icons for pilgrims made at Mount Athos. The examples were analysed from several perspectives: the visual culture of the era and the development of cartography, the devotional practices, and the territorially-constructed national identities.
The conference is part of the series of events organised on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the opening of the National Museum of Maps and Old Books. Further information at: https://www.muzeulhartilor.ro/event-item/conferinta-icoane-cu-harti-in-sud-estul-european/?lang=en .
Dr. Marian Țuțui participated, together with the movie director Constantin Vaeni, the film critic Cristian Tudor Popescu and the historians Virgiliu Tărău (Babeș-Bolyai University) and Gabriel Moisa (Ţării Crişurilor Museum), in the debate "Romanian Cinema – a tool of the communist regime for propaganda and manipulation?".
The event took place on March 22 and 23 at the Ţării Crişurilor Museum in Oradea.
Between 17 and 19 March 2023, the Byzantinist Society of Cyprus organized in Nicosia the fourth international conference dedicated to Byzantine and medieval studies. The conference took place in a hybrid format. It brought together several researchers in medieval studies, and the prevailing theme regarded the Byzantine cultural and artistic heritage. The sessions of discussions were dedicated to hagiographic and theological sources, hymnography and liturgy, monastic culture, paideia literature, literary and historiographic incursions, geography and astronomy, law, manuscripts and miniatures, mosaics and inscriptions, Byzantine administrative and urban structures, architecture, art and iconography, frescoes and painted cycles. Dr. Elisabeta Negrău, member of the "Medieval Art and Architecture" Department of the Institute of Art History, held the presentation Icons with Maps, Sacred Landscapes, and Ex-Votos: The Geography of Devotion.
The programme and the abstract are available at: https://byzantinistsociety.org.cy/cbms2023/ .
Film critic Mihai Fulger, researcher at the Institute of Art History, was part, alongside Michelangelo Messina (Italy) and Nenad Dukić (Serbia), of the jury of the Federation of Film Critics of Europe and the Mediterranean (FEDEORA) at the Belgrade International Film Festival (FEST). The 51st edition of FEST, the most important film festival in Serbia, took place between 24 February and 5 March 2023. The FEDEORA jury had the task to evaluate ten films (fiction features) selected in the festival’s main competition. The FEDEORA Award for the best Euro-Mediterranean film went to the second feature of the British director Fyzal Boulifa, The Damned Don’t Cry (Les damnés ne pleurent pas, a France-Belgium-Morocco co-production).
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb will host from 21 February till 26 March 2023 the exhibition Figments of Time/Prividi vremena by the Croatian artist Sandra Sterle. The exhibition is curated by Olivia Nițiș, researcher at the Institute of Art History and vice-president of the Experimental Project Association.
Figments of Time is focused on her ongoing practice of biographical research, archiving and self-archiving in linear and nonlinear forms of relating to documentation and memory. Her discourse revolving around her relationship with her grandfather formulates a non-linear film-structure with installation units that can be seen as separate entities or fragments that are assembled together to form a single unit. A possible layer of her long-term project and current exhibition is an attempt to read her own art practice through her grandfather’s biography.
Olivia Nițiș
The digitization of the journal Studii şi cercetări de istoria artei. Seria Teatru, Muzică, Cinematografie has recently begun, as part of a joint project between G. Oprescu Institute of Art History and the National Institute of Heritage.
https://biblioteca-digitala.ro/?tip-publicatie=periodic&pub=3643-studii-si-cercetari-de-istoria-artei
Wednesday meetings
Beginning with September 2011, the G. Oprescu Institute hosts monthly meetings where researchers share with their colleagues various novelties in the field of fine arts, theatre, music or film history.
IAH kinema
The project "IAH kinema" started in February 2017. Films of documentary and artistic value, less known to the Romanian public, will be projected occasionally for researchers interested in the history of cinema.
Venue: G. Oprescu Institute of Art History, 196 Calea Victoriei.
Romanian Academy Awards and honorary degrees
Dr. Adrian-Silvan Ionescu, director of G. Oprescu Institute of Art History, was awarded the Anniversary Medal "Centenary of the Great Unification".
In the Decree no. 1137 of 25 November 2021, published in Monitorul Oficial al României, Part I, no. 1129/26.XI.2021, p. 4 – a document signed by the President of Romania, Klaus Werner Iohannis and countersigned by the Prime Minister, Nicolae-Ionel Ciucă – states that the medal was awarded “in appreciation of the effort made to preserve and promote the memory of events and participants in the achievement of national unity and the modern Romanian state, contributing to the defense and perpetuation of the values in whose name the Great Unification was accomplished."
This distinction honors both the beneficiary and our Institute, which has distinguished itself by its contribution to the study and preservation of the cultural and artistic traditions of the Great Unification era.
The ‟George Oprescuˮ Prize of the Romanian Academy for the year 2016, in the field of art history, went ex aequo to the books Goticul în Transilvania. Pictura (c. 1300-1500) by Dana Jenei and Medieval Wall Paintings in Transylvanian Orthodox Churches: Iconographic Subjects in Historical Context by Elena Dana Prioteasa. The award ceremony took place on 13 December 2018.
Goticul în Transilvania. Pictura (c. 1300-1500) with a foreword by acad. Răzvan Theodorescu and summaries in English and German (București: Oscar Print, 2016, 240 p., 153 ill.), is an updated version of the author’s doctoral thesis.
Since 2013, dr. Dana Jenei is researcher at G. Oprescu Institute of Art History, Department for Medieval Art and Architecture.
The 2015 "George Oprescu" Prize of the Romanian Academy was awarded ex aequo to Ioana Vlasiu, Ioan Şulea, Cora Fodor for their book Ion Vlasiu, and to Rodica Vârtaciu Medeleţ for Valori de artă barocă în Banat. The ceremony took place on 15 December 2017 in the Aula Magna of the Romanian Academy.
The monograph album Ion Vlasiu gives an ample insight into the work and life of an outstanding Romanian artist.
Dr. Ioana Vlasiu, daughter of the artist and a renowned art historian, was a member of G. Oprescu Institute for more than forty years.
Suzana Móré Heitel (1947-2008) was posthumously awarded the 2010 "George Oprescu" Prize of the Romanian Academy for her book Începuturile artei medievale în bazinul inferior al Mureşului. The awards ceremony took place on 13 December 2012.
During the last 18 years of her life, Suzana Heitel was a researcher at the Institute of Art History - the Department for Medieval Art and Architecture.
The 2009 "George Oprescu" Prize of the Romanian Academy went to Ioana Iancovescu (Institute of Art History) and Corina Popa (National University of Arts Bucharest) for their monograph Mănăstirea Hurezi. The awards ceremony was held on 15 December 2011.