Art today: 7 Romanian & international gallerists are talking about the artists to watch and art to collect

I have always wondered how an artist is discovered by a gallery. How does a curator see “that” something in a painting or a sculpture, how an artistic career is designed, step by step. As I told you, I love the “behind scene” stories. Therefore, I talked to 7 Romanian and international gallerists (participants at RAD Fair 2025) about the artists to watch right now, about the selection proces and… how this weird year 2025 would look like as it would been an art work. (photo up- Espace Intermédiaire – Ada Muntean – The absence of desire – 2023)

*** #ArtBlogger #Interview #MadeInRomania #English

* Over 120 artists, 28 galleries and a spectacular sculpture park will be on display at CARO hotel, at RAD 2025 – between May 22 and 25, at CARO City Resort in Bucharest. (READ here about Sculpture Park surprises) – https://radartfair.com/
* RAD ART FAIR will host a diverse selection of works – paintings, sculptures, textile art, photography, video art, multimedia installations and interdisciplinary projects. 

How does a gallery (or an art galerist) find THAT artist, the one that you know will conquer the art world? The one you bet on? How do you choose the artists that will enter the gallery portfolio?

Catinca Tăbăcaru, Catinca Tabacaru Gallery: At Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, the artist selection process is deeply intuitive. As Catinca Tabacaru herself noted in an interview, “Intuition comes first and last. The mind is the over-analyzing middle that must exist to reach the end.” This approach merges a visceral response to an artist’s work with a profound understanding of their intentions and context. We seek to collaborate with artists who not only produce compelling work but also contribute meaningfully to cultural dialogues – reflecting the complexity and diversity of the contemporary world.

Teodora Cosman, Espace Intermédiaire: It has to be something surprising, something I’ve never seen before. And also the human factor: I have to see a vision and a real drive to create.

Gloria Berceanu, GLORIÆ Art Gallery: We choose the artists that we love, we believe in, the ones that we love to collect art from and hang in our homes. We also choose the artists that are leaving a mark in contemporary art, the ones that are or we think that they will be in the history books.

Maria Bîrsan, Sandwich Gallery: There’s no set formula for discovering the artist who will conquer the art world. For us, THAT artist is someone with whom we can develop a meaningful and dynamic exchange of ideas – one that naturally evolves into compelling and thought-provoking projects. It’s not just about talent, but about vision, commitment, and a shared curiosity that pushes both the artist and the gallery to grow.

Marian Ivan, Ivan Gallery: I show artists whose work I like and sometimes buy. I say “sometimes” because my budget is limited –  art is expensive.

Ciprian Paleologu, LABORNA: I can only think of one way to proceed to such a difficult conceptual issue: not to search just for a “golden” artist and try the deep/dark field of artistic research, based on the big picture in favor of a shiny comet. At Laborna Gallery we have tried, from the beginning, to study the entire artistic activity of some interesting artists, not just punctual solo exhibition concepts. The anatomy of creation, from the most “nonessential” sketches and drawings to the finite artistic pieces. We preserve the artist’s activity over a fixed period of time with the intention to reveal a complete and complex artists archive, more than claiming to show a conventional “exhibition”. The public is used to the “purged” version of the artist’s vision, passed through a series of filters. The access to the hidden laboratory of the artist is fairly rare, the full perspective which his vision is built on being most often difficult to follow.

Christian Roncea, Pharmakon Gallery: Excitement, curiosity, surprise and confusion. I look at my curatorial practice as an exercise of role-playing. Before a show I put myself in the shoes of the artist, the visitors and, naturally, the gallerist. These roles intersect in these four emotions. They are my compass for finding a promising artist. The one you bet on? It feels wrong to look at an artist’s practice as a game worthy of betting on. I like to bet on artworks, alongside the artists. Artists always bet on their next work. As a gallery, you enter the world of an artist, and if lucky, you get to enter their bets (from evaluating their value to evaluating their formal or spiritual qualities). You become part of it. When someone collects a work, they contribute to curving the trajectory of these “bets”. How do we choose the artists that will enter the gallery portfolio? Pharmakon merges the spirit of an artist-run space with the system and language of a commercial gallery. Our gallery has two independent roles which split between establishing or discovering emerging practices and keeping close to the community of online or local artists. The gallery portfolio is defined by interweaving these two roles, which makes the process of choosing an artist, unpredictable, but rewarding for both parties.

Tell me about the artists that your gallery will represent at RAD Fair 2025? What’s the new name to watch this year? 

Catinca Tăbăcaru Gallery: At RAD Art Fair 2025, Catinca Tabacaru Gallery will present works by several of its represented artists, including Mara Verhoogt, Marta Mattioli, Rachel Monosov, Nona Inescu, as well as a monumental sculpture over three meters tall by Ovidiu Toader in the Sculpture Park. A compelling new name to watch is Mara Verhoogt, an emerging artist whose practice explores the convergence between human and non-human beings through self-portraiture and body modification, reimagining rigid identity structures. We hosted Mara’s first solo exhibition last year and have since initiated a collaboration with a gallery in Milan to broaden her international representation and support the development of her artistic trajectory.

Espace Intermédiaire: I’m an artist myself, so it’ll be me, Teodora Cosman, and two other women artists and friends: Ada Muntean and Aleksandra Chaushova. I’d say that Aleksandra has a pretty interesting trajectory.

GLORIÆ Art Gallery: We will exhibit paintings and drawings by Sorin Ilfoveanu and sculptures by his son, Adrian Ilfoveanu. Both of them are names to watch because we’re showing different sides of their artistic practice. Sorin Ilfoveanu’s monumental paintings are remarkable because of the radical economy of the technique, with which the artist has represented in a few lines drawn with an astonishingly confident brush. His compositions represent successive thematic series, from Levant to Erotika Biblion and Saturnalia. Adrian Ilfoveanu’s sculptures are distinguished by his versatile use of materials such as wood, marble, bronze and synthetic resins. His creations, characterized by essentialized anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures, delve deeply into themes of nature, as well as biblical and mythological figures.

Sandwich Gallery: As always, our focus at RAD is to bring together a range of voices and artistic perspectives, and this year, we’re doing so through a more nuanced lens. Our 2025 booth will be shaped around the idea of quiet luxury – a subtle, understated elegance that speaks through refined details rather than excess. It’s an invitation to slow down and appreciate the power of restraint, depth, and material presence. We invite you to keep an eye on artists like COADY, whose practice is marked by refinement and a continuous commitment to precision and evolution.

Ivan Gallery: For this edition of RAD, we will show a selection of works by artists from the gallery’s portfolio, as well as artists we plan to exhibit later this year. And to answer the second question: If you saw something you liked in the past 2–3 years, you should follow those artists and see how their work has evolved. Stop always looking for something “new” – it’s boring.

LABORNA: This year we developed a special concept for Laborna space at RAD – “The world is under construction”, with three spotlight artists: Adrian Piorescu, Ciprian Paleologu and Ovidiu Morar. Each one of them delivers an interesting vision in an installation concept.

Pharmakon Gallery: For our first participation in Rad Fair, we will present a duo booth by Eva Chapkin and Matei Dragomir. Matei and Eva, both based in The Hague, NL, and part of the same generation, embody a cutting-edge perspective on the horizon of Romanian contemporary art. Through a fluid and autonomous attitude towards art making, the dialogue between the two artists offers a glimpse into forms of ultra-contemporary art. Their practice shares a playful approach towards traditional techniques ranging from analog photography, casting or oil painting. Their works, in their final form, evoke universal, but timely questions through personal or speculative storytelling. A new name to watch this year is Tudor Necula, with whom I had the pleasure of working on his first solo-show at Atelier 35 in 2024. Born in 2002, Tudor’s practice reflects the new generation of artists, and specifically Romanian painters. His works are vibrant, honest and fantasy-oriented. His interests in animation and fairy-tale-like imagery are merged with introspective personal stories from his childhood, shaping a unique realm of narratives. 

2025 – the year, as a famous work of art, will be… 

Catinca Tăbăcaru: Ovidiu Toader, OM. 
Teodora Cosman: I’m afraid, until now it’s been Guernica.
Gloria Berceanu: Adrian Ilfoveanu –  Bird, Sorin Ilfoveanu – Levant. 
Maria Bîrsan: The Valley Curtain project (1972) by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
Marian Ivan: The installation No to Violence, 1974, by Geta Brătescu.
Ciprian Paleologu: Untitled. 
Christian Roncea: K-CoreaINC. K (section a) by Ryan Trecartin. 

Where to find all the artists & galleries? 

Catinca Tabacaru, Catinca Tabacaru Gallery – www.catincatabacaru.com, @catincatabacaru. 
Teodora Cosman, Espace Intermédiaire, @espace_intermediaire, www.espaceintermediaire.com 
Gloria Berceanu, GLORIÆ Art Gallery, @gloriae.art.gallery / https://gloriae.ro
Maria Bîrsan, Sandwich Gallery, @sandwich.gallery, https://www.sandwichgallery.ro/ 
Marian Ivan, Ivan Gallery – @ivangallery, www.ivangallery.com
Ciprian Paleologu, LABORNA, @laborna_gallery, laborna.ro 
Christian Roncea, Pharmakon Gallery, @pharmakon_gallery