The retrospective exhibition ”Shadows of the Mind” brings for the first time in Romania the works of
the internationally renowned South African-based photographer Roger Ballen. The exhibition at
Scanteia+ will open on Thursday, March 26, at 6 p.m., in the presence of the artist and curator. A traveling
exhibition, it has been presented in various other iterations in over 12 renowned institutions, including:
Frans Hals Museum (Haarlem, 2005), Bibliotheque Nationale de France (Paris, 2006), Triennale Milano
(2009), Bozar (Brussels, 2010), Museum of Modern Art (Istanbul, 2017), and most recently, in 2025 at
the Benaki Museum in Athens.
The exhibition held at Scanteia+ will open on Thursday, 26 March, at 6 PM in the presence of the
artist and the curator. Curated by Hercules Papaioannou the exhibition is co-organized together with
Studio Roger Ballen, and Scanteia+. ”Shadows of the Mind” will run until Thursday, 7 of May, 2026, and
invites viewers to walk through several stages of Ballen’s renowned career. The retrospective exhibition
brings together eight photographic series, from different stages in Rogers Ballen’s oeuvre, moving
through the documentary style of his earlier works into the psychological theatre that became the stage for
his works during the early 2000s, and arriving at a new era in the Ballenesque aesthetics, now in full
color, by presenting his latest works, from the series Spirits and Spaces.
”[…] Ballen’s work evolved from a documentary style to a more abstract symbolic aesthetic. He views
geology as a fundamental metaphor for his work, as the descent into the unknown depths of the earth into
strata older than civilization, parallels the journey into the human psyche. His work opens the Pandora’s
box of the human mind, releasing unprocessed raw emotions. He surrenders himself to the archetypal, the
hidden, the place where the rational loses its dominance. […]
(fragments from Hercules Papaioannou exhibition text)

Roger Ballen – born in 1950 in New York, where he grew up. His mother worked for Magnum Photos in
New York, so early on he got to know the work of major photographers; André Kertész, a family friend,
influenced him greatly. He studied psychology at Berkeley in the late ‘60s, when the West Coast was
bursting with reactionary movements and manifestations of the counterculture. He was then influenced
by the Theatre of the Absurd, cinema, literature, and the work of psychiatrist R.D. Laing. In the 1970s he traveled for years beyond the confines of Western civilization. In the late 1970s he embarked on a PhD in geology in Colorado. Aster its completion in 1981, he bought a Rolleiflex, with which he photographed until 2015. From 1982, he began working as a geologist in Johannesburg, where he has since resided. He identifies Henri Cartier Bresson, André Kertész, Paul Strand, Diane Arbus, Ralph-Eugene Meatyard and Brassaï among his early photographic influences. More than 20 books have been published on his work. He has directed more than 10 videos and short films, including a video titled ”I Fink U Freeky” for the
band Die Antwoord (co-directed by Ninja, 2012), with more than 200 million views on YouTube. He has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Art and Design by Kingston University, UK (2018) and has received major awards such as: Artist of the Year by Suddeutsche Zeitung Magazin (2014), Photographer of the Year at Rencontres d’ Arles (2002), Best photo book PHotoESPAÑA (Madrid, 2001),
Artist of the Year at Photosynkyria (Thessaloniki 2000). His work belongs to more than 60 collections of
museums on all continents such as Center Georges Pompidou (Paris), George Eastman House (Rochester,
USA), Getty Museum (Los Angeles), Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris), Musée de l’ Élysée (Lausanne), Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Pushkin Museum (Moscow), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Tate Britain (London), Victoria and Albert Museum, (London). He is also the founder and executive director of the Inside Out Centre for the Arts and the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography in Johannesburg. The Centre aims to promote awareness of International and
African related issues through art and educational programmes. In September 2025, Thames and Hudson
released Spirits and Spaces, the first ever publication of Ballen’s work in colour.

Hercules Papaioannou (b. 1962, Thessaloniki) has studied Physics at the Aristotelian University of
Thessaloniki (1984), Photography at New York University (MΑ, 1992), and culminated his PhD in
Photography at the School of Journalism and Mass Media (Auth, 2005). He works as a curator at MOMUS-Thessaloniki Museum of Photography since 1999, has been its former director (2016-2018),
and co-organizer of the annual festival Photosynkyria between 1993-2006. In the past 35 years he has
published a large number of texts and essays on photography, and has curated a large number of
exhibitions. His published theoretical works include Marlboro Photographs and the Mild Wild West
(2009), The Photograph of the Greek Landscape, Between Myth and Ideology (2014), About Nature and
Truthity (2017), Photography as an enigma (2020), Eyes Without a Face, Photography and Surveillance (to be released in May 2026). He has translated theoretical works by Susan Sontag, Ian Jeffrey, Villém
Flusser and Julian Stallabrass.

What happens if we gently scratch the surface? When we reveal step by step, what is underneath? Can we perceive this as an act of renewal and care?
Peeling anything, piece by piece, puts us inevitably in a moment of reflection, on careful ground. Exfoliating coverings, shells, and outer layers forces out new shapes and meanings. In this sense, peeling becomes as much an act of care as exposure. By exposing what lies beneath, the gesture distances us from familiar forms, allowing meaning to shift as we move.
“Peelings” brings together the work of four artists within a shared conceptual framework. Across their projects, each artist explores layers of meaning that hold latent, personal landscapes beneath the surface.
While the artists share a common structural and experiential framework within the gallery space, each practice unfolds a distinct inner world, shaped by fragility, subtle gestures of irony, poetic sensibility, and memories. Spending time with the works and their materiality becomes essential, as new meanings emerge precisely through prolonged attention to objects and surfaces.
Peeling, understood as a careful and deliberate act, arises within a culture shaped by acceleration, where speed often displaces attention and meanings are consumed before they are fully grasped. In this type of social setting, dominated by immediacy and constant stimulation, the exhibition proposes a deliberate shift. From instinctive, superficial encounters toward a conscious decision to remain connected with the space. We tend to accept the aesthetic outer layer of things without pausing to ask what lies within. In this show, we invite the public to pause and reflect. To pierce materiality and embrace each artist’s viewpoint on the surrounding world.
Alexandra Mocan works in her practice with playfully reconfigured objects, elements that simultaneously reflect the ideas of exhaustion, resilience, and the fragile mechanics that lie within the motivation extracted from everyday life. Her use of “objects-appropriation” and “near-clichés” does not aim at nostalgia, but at exposing how ordinary objects silently absorb collective anxieties and unspoken expectations.
In the work of Ana Ionescu, her metal sculptures resemble objects that appear recognisable yet slightly detached from their original function. Her works expose our need to place ourselves at the centre of meaning-making, transforming egocentric perception into a productive space of multiple interpretations.
For Ana Petrovici, her rigid structures operate as containers for emotional pressure and sensory intensity, allowing fragility to emerge from within the displayed industrial skin. Underneath the metal layer, we can find vulnerable, poetic, and deeply embodied inner terrain, where desire, anxiety, and memory become materially embodied.
Thea Lazăr’s video piece puts us inevitably in a reading process shaped by duality. Through the act of flower pressing, the installation explores how local and everyday knowledge about nature is produced, owned, and remembered, while simultaneously uncovering the complex Eurocentric and institutional frameworks embedded in this seemingly innocent gesture.
Exhibition made possible with the help of ALRO Slatina

Micu explores how lived reality becomes an image. Working from a unified domestic – studio – balcony garden, she observes how light, plants, and objects condition one another. Paintings begin with photographs and are reformulated through subtle shifts in light, colour, and composition—slowing perception and turning representation into a space for mental dwelling. In the exhibition, this ethic of attention extends into video, where observation becomes responsible intervention and care becomes a compositional criterion.

Marking two years of the Atelierele Scânteia collective, Various Positions presents the diverse practices of 14 artists working in photography, painting, music, and sculpture.

The exhibition brings forward works developed in the studios since September 2023 while addressing the urgent need for artist studios in Romania and the essential role these spaces play in sustaining the local art scene.

Arts students graduating exhitbion of the Kontextuelle praxis Programme at AdBK Munchen.
at Scanteia Studios

Jecza & Scânteia+ present:

Marius Bercea
New Tenant | Sunshine Noir
curated by Tevž Logar
17.05 – 13.07.2025

Marking Jecza Gallery’s debut in Bucharest, this exhibition signals a new chapter in our trajectory— one that expands our presence into the capital’s contemporary art scene. In collaboration with Scânteia+, we are thrilled to start with a solo show by Marius Bercea, curated by Tevž Logar.

Marius Bercea’s art explores the contrasts between memory and the present, between the familiar and the uncanny, in an intense visual cinematic language. His scenes, often inspired by cityscapes or interiors suspended in time, bring together fragments of his native landscapes in Transylvania and California, places to which he is deeply connected. This double geographical anchoring contributes to the timeless/suspended atmosphere of his works, where the boundaries between time, space and identity become fluid. The exhibition brings his visual universe to the forefront and offers the public the opportunity to reconnect directly with one of the most active voices in contemporary art.

Curated by Cristina Vasilescu and Georgia Țidorescu

Unleashing the sins of sculpture is a major survey exhibition featuring 19 contemporary Romanian female sculptors, showcasing works created over the past decade. The exhibition brings together both emerging and established artists, shedding light on multiple perspectives of women in sculpture and installation art. Centered around themes of pleasure and pain, the curatorial framework explores reflections on the female body and identity, their external stimuli, and the performative nature of sculpture. By amplifying these female voices in various constellations, the exhibition offers fresh insights into the evolving landscape of sculpture and the dynamic roles women continue to play within it.

The presented artists are: Apparatus 22, Andreea Anghel, Alexandra Boaru, Alex Bodea, The Bureau of Melodramatic Research, Lorena Cocioni, Giulia Crețulescu, Arantxa Etcheverria, Andreea Medar, Hortensia Mi Kafchin, Ioana Nemeș, Ileana Pașcalău, Pusha Petrov, Adriana Preda, Lea Rasovszky, Ioana Sisea, Larisa Sitar, Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor and Kristin Wenzel.

Artist: Albert Kaan

at Switch Lab

Artist: Vlad Albu
Curator: Georgia Țidorescu

at Switch Lab

Artist: Sergiu Ujvarosi
Curator: Roxana Morar

at Calciu Space

The opening weekend was highlighted by live performances from Cristi Cons, Dewalta, Francesco Tristano, Mischa Blanos, and Thomas Melchior. Complementing the musical acts was a unique visual experience, featuring curated selections from the MARE / Museum of Recent Art collection.

Artists: Ragna Arndt-Maric, Alparslan Ozturk, Alexndra Luerman, Finn Brucker, Lina Dannemann, Helen Luth, Josephine Kawalwesky, Mika Springer, Jonas Glanz, Stephanie Schuttler, Steffen Niers, Vincent Holscher

at Switch Lab

Artist: Andreea Ilie

at Calciu Space

Artist: Nicu Ilfoveanu

at Switch Lab

Artists: Ana Avram, Matei Dumitriu, Herne Hiili
Curator: Daria Corlațan

at Calciu Space

Artist: Michele Bressan

at Switch Lab

Guided tour for students from the Kunstakademie Münster

Artists: Alexandra Boaru, Eva Chapkin, Daniela Groza, Bede Kincso, Andriana Oborocean, Dumitrița Răzlog, Roxana Savin, Anca Țintea

at Switch Lab

This opening marks the first Open Studios event, where the public is invited to observe the creative process and engage in dialogue with artists in their studios, offering a glimpse into how their artistic practice evolves.