Ion Grigorescu, From static oblivion, curated and published by AVARIE is  on view at the Librairie-Galerie Métamorphoses in Paris. Presented alongside his iconic 1974 photograph Birth of Romanian Language, this exceptional showcase is part of the festival Un Week-end à l’est, dedicated this year to Bucharest. The exhibition runs until Saturday, 29 November 2025, and opens on Thursday, 20 November, with a visual arts trail in the galleries of the 6th arrondissement. On Friday, 21 November, you are kindly invited to the artist talk Topographies sensibles, featuring Mircea Cantor, Dan Perjovschi, Radu Belcin, Mihaela Moldovan, and Dan Vezentan, moderated by curator Alain Berland, with an intervention by Giuliana Prucca on the publication with Ion Grigorescu.

The festival Un week-end à l’Est returns for its 9th edition, shining a spotlight on Bucharest — a crossroads between East and West. For two weeks, from 18 November to 1 December 2025, Paris will pulse to the rhythm of creations from Romania: cinema, literature, dance, music, visual arts, and debates will come together to offer a rich panorama of the contemporary cultural scene.

From Cristian Mungiu — Cannes-awarded filmmaker and patron of the festival — to Mihaela Drăgan, a leading feminist and Roma voice, choreographer Simona Deaconescu, conceptual artist Dan Perjovschi, and acclaimed writer Mircea Cărtărescu, this edition will highlight more than eighty artists, thinkers, and creators. Each, in their own way, explores Romania’s multiple identities and the tensions that run through European societies.

With performances, exhibitions, screenings, and concerts, the festival promises a vibrant dialogue between Eastern and Western imaginations — an invitation to discover the energy, diversity, and freedom of an artistic scene that defies borders.

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Ion Grigorescu | From static oblivion
book exhibition

Librairie-Galerie Métamorphoses
17 rue Jacob
75006 Paris

Exhibition 21 - 29 November, 2025, 10am-1pm | 2:30-7pm
Opening Thursday, 20 November, from 5pm
Artist Talk Friday, 21 November, 5-6pm

@librairiemetamorphoses
@unweekendalest
@berlandalain

Ion Grigorescu (Bucharest, 1945) is one of the most significant Romanian contemporary artists of the Post-War period and an iconic figure of the conceptual and performative art since the early 70s. He represented Romania at Venice Biennial in 1997 and 2011; his works are in the main public collections, such as MoMA, New York; mumok and Erste Foundation, Vienna; Tate Modern and Deutsche Bank AG, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris.

The artists' book From Static Oblivion reflects on the image as a site of tension and a paradoxical erasure of the body. In Ion Grigorescu’s work - through photography, film, performance, drawing, and writing - the body appears yet remains absent, questioning collective identity. Under Ceausescu’s regime, the artist hid within his images, asserting his existence and resistance. Through ritual gestures and symbolic performances, Grigorescu links art and life, exposing the fiction of representation and affirming images as acts of subversive power.

📷 Ion Grigorescu, Naissance de la langue roumaine, 1974 © Frac des Pays de la Loire