RO EN
About
Bucharest Cluj Timisoara
Thu 9/10
6pm
10pm
Map Program

Nicodim

Combinatul Fondului Plastic
Extended Hours

ReFacerea

With Victoria Zidaru
Curated by Adina Drinceanu, in collaboration with Suprainfinit Gallery
Refacerea (“remaking”) presents the work of Victoria Zidaru, a Romanian artist whose four-decade-long practice explores ritual and spirituality, through natural materials. The title signals both a gesture and a method: a resilient practice of remaking, in which fractures become sites of renewal and continuity. Every element: plants, handwoven textiles, and inscribed words, are deliberately considered, and olfactory components are incorporated to heighten presence and attention, shaping a fully embodied sensory experience. The installation unfolds as a living organism. Towering columns of hay—some over seven meters—rise through the space, acting as conduits of energy, while others are braided into sculptural forms. Herbs release delicate scents; inscribed words echo like mantras. The contrast between the white of handwoven cloth and the darker tones of hay underscores the visual and haptic power of juxtaposed textures and varying thicknesses of weave. Structure, weight, and rhythm emerge from meticulous control of materials, producing a poise and archetypal beauty that govern the space. For Zidaru, resilience is a practice: turning constraints, material, social, and personal, into structured, meaningful form. Born in Liteni, Bucovina, and marked by her father’s political imprisonment under communism in the late fifties, she forged an early appreciation for plants and the ‘natural’ world as a means to find solace and as a medium of contemplation. This relationship evolved into a symbolic vocabulary of healing, where herbs, textiles, and scent are ritualized through acts of weaving, binding, inscribing, and releasing olfactory traces. Her practice draws equally on Bucovina’s ritual traditions and Christian mystical theology, Hildegard of Bingen’s viriditas, the greening force of divine vitality, and Herrade de Landsberg’s Hortus Deliciarum, where botanical imagery embodies wisdom and interconnection. Within this framework, sage and fennel act as purifiers, handwoven cloth becomes a vessel of continuity, linking past traditions with present practice and inscribed words establish rhythm and attention. Resilience emerges as a process of care, repetition, and transformation, where vulnerability is reorganized into endurance. Against the backdrop of humanitarian crises, ecological unraveling, and the estrangements of technological speed, resilience emerges as a pressing and unsettled question: how do we reorganize and endure? In moments of rupture, patterns of shared memory and symbolic structures resurface, offering frameworks through which both self and community may find orientation. Resilience is thus inseparable from the relational networks in which it is enacted, not only a personal strategy, but a process embedded in rituals, rhythms, and the consciousness of a wider collective. Refacerea draws on this symbolic continuum. Resonant with Indigenous cosmologies, Eastern spirituality, and Christian mysticism, the work engages archetypes of healing not as metaphors but as active forces. Herbs cleanse and recalibrate; handwoven cloth embodies continuity, linking past traditions with present practice; inscribed words create cadence and attention. The sacred is neither distant nor abstract, but material, embodied, and shared. Rather than providing resolutions, Zidaru’s work leaves us with a provocation: for the artist resilience is not merely a survival technique, but is rather inseparable from the consolations of the spirit, then where and how can it be cultivated within the fractures of contemporary life? Collaboration is central to the exhibition: the woven elements were created with the women of Liteni, while commissioned works by Tudor Cucu (film) and Călin Topa (sound installation) are integrated as essential components. The participatory project Donate a Word invites the public to contribute words that become part of the installation itself. – Adina Drinceanu

Tell us about Nicodim.

Mihai Nicodim opened his first contemporary art gallery in 2006 in Los Angeles with a focus on exposing emerging American, African, Asian, and European artists to an international audience. Nicodim opened a Bucharest gallery in 2014 and expanded to an additional location in New York in 2021. The gallery was the first to show Adrian Ghenie (Romania), Ciprian Muresan (Romania), Serban Savu (Romania), Simphiwe Ndzube (South Africa), Katherina Olschbaur (Austria), and Moffat Takadiwa (Zimbabwe) in major solo exhibitions stateside, placing their works in important private and public collections, and helping their careers blossom into global prominence. Other notable artists who have shown with Nicodim early in their careers include Isabelle Albuquerque, Michiel Ceulers, Dominique Fung, Devin B. Johnson, Kris Lemsalu, Larry Madrigal, Oscar Murillo, Eddie Peake, Mosie Romney, Max Hooper Schneider, Jorge Peris, Anna Uddenberg, Ambera Wellmann, Hugo Wilson, and Zhou Yilun. The gallery maintains relationships with prominent institutions and has placed works by the gallery’s artists in the collections of Denver Art Museum, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Centre Pompidiou, Rubell Museum, SFMOMA, the Yuz Museum, Pond Society, the Marval Collection, amongst others.

What do you have upcoming?

Against the backdrop of humanitarian crises, ecological unraveling, and the estrangements of technological speed, resilience emerges as a pressing and unsettled question: how do we reorganize and endure? In moments of rupture, patterns of shared memory and symbolic structures resurface, offering frameworks through which both self and community may find orientation. Refacerea, Victoria Zidaru’s first solo exhibition with Nicodim Gallery, in collaboration with Suprainfinit Gallery, draws on this symbolic continuum. Resonant with Indigenous cosmologies, Eastern spirituality, and Christian mysticism, the work engages archetypes of healing not as metaphors but as active forces. Herbs cleanse and recalibrate; handwoven cloth embodies continuity, linking past traditions with present practice; inscribed words establish rhythm and attention. For over four decades, Romanian artist Victoria Zidaru has transformed natural materials into living structures of ritual and resilience. Towering columns of hay rise as conduits of energy, herbs release delicate scents, and cloth and text interlace matter and spirit. Her installation unfolds as a shared organism, at once fragile and enduring. Collaboration is central to the exhibition: the woven elements were created with the women of Liteni, while commissioned works by Tudor Cucu (film) and Călin Topa (sound installation) are integrated as essential components. The participatory project Donate a Word invites the public to contribute words that become part of the installation itself. Rather than offering resolutions, Zidaru leaves us with a provocation: if resilience is not merely survival, but inseparable from the consolations of the spirit, where can it be cultivated within the fractures of contemporary life? *text by Adina Drinceanu Victoria Zidaru (b. 1956, Liteni, Romania) is a Romanian artist renowned for her immersive installations and multisensory approach to contemporary art. Her practice encompasses installations, performances, and collaborations with choreographers, musicians, and filmmakers, often engaging vulnerable communities. Over four decades, she has developed a distinctive visual language that integrates plants, weaving techniques, scents, inscribed words, and ritualistic practices to explore the symbolic dialogue between the individual, nature, and community. In 2016, she co-founded Ferma de Arte in Liteni, an art hub connecting art, nature, and community, informed by her earlier experience in a religious community (1987–2006). Recent projects include Refacerea (2025–2026) at Nicodim Gallery, Bucharest; Victoria Zilei (2024–2025) at MARE Museum, Bucharest; Lingua Ignota (2024) at the Istituto della Pietà and Archivi della Misericordia, Venice; Ziua Întâi(2023–2024) at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; Felix Anima (2022) at Palazzo Ca’ Da Mosto, Venice; and Hortus Deliciarum 3 (2019) at the Romanian Cultural Institute, Venice. Her work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Romania, Italy, and Europe, including Venice, Vienna, Timișoara, and Seoul.