Ovidiu Maitec 100

On the occasion of the centenary of his birth, Ovidiu Maitec (1925–2007), one of the most important Romanian sculptors of the 20th century, returns to the attention of the Bucharest public, this time at Art Safari, in an exhibition that brings together works from major museum collections in Romania, private collections, and the family collection.
Organized by the National Heritage Institute in partnership with the Maitec Foundation, through the artist’s heirs, Dana and Stephane Maitec, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to enter the universe of the artist whom Mircea Eliade considered “the spiritual successor of Brâncuși.”

Ovidiu Maitec was the author of a unique technical innovation in the artistic language of the last century—rhythmic perforations in wood—through which rays of light penetrated the wall of the sculpture.
His works, often kinetic, are permeated by rhythms of voids and solids that transform wood into aerial structures that seem to defy the laws of matter and gravity.

With four participations in the Venice Art Biennale and four major solo exhibitions in the UK, numerous exhibitions in Romania and other prestigious European venues, Ovidiu Maitec has enjoyed the appreciation of international collectors and gallery owners, including Jim Ede, co-founder of the Tate Gallery in London, and Richard Demarco, the famous gallery owner and initiator of the Edinburgh Art Festival.

From forms inspired by archaic symbols to monumental constructions that reveal the artist’s fascination with contemporary technical developments, his work has maintained an impressive coherence, intertwining tradition and modernism in a vision of his own, where classical proportions meet the boldness of abstraction.
The Ovidiu Maitec 100 exhibition is not just a retrospective, but a celebration of a major artistic legacy, offering the public a profound aesthetic experience, in which sculpture is not passively contemplated, but experienced in a lively dialogue between the viewer and the work.
This fall, at Art Safari, visitors will rediscover an artist—Ovidiu Maitec—who continues to fascinate today with the relevance and power of his work.