ICONOFLUX: Curated by Lina Țărmure

Arsmonitor opens its 2026-2027 exhibition program with ICONOFLUX, a curatorial research project by Lina Țărmure. The exhibition will be open to the public from September 3 to October 22, 2026.

ICONOFLUX brings together works by Horia Bernea, Florin Mitroi, Ion Dumitriu, Mihai Sârbulescu, Alexandru Chira, Bogdan Vlăduță, Gili Mocanu, Anca Mureșan, Ciprian Mureșan, Șerban Savu, Diana Popuț, and Eva Chapkin.

First presented this summer at the Cluj-Napoca Art Museum, as part of Praxis! Emergent Curator's Days, the exhibition has been reconfigured for the Arsmonitor space in Bucharest. The selection of works was rethought in relation to the gallery's architecture and dimensions, while the list of artists remained unchanged.

ICONOFLUX stems from a series of inquiries into the way the iconic of a sacred nature circulates in contemporary Romanian art from the 1970s to the present. As a research-based curatorial project, the present exhibition is the first in a broader series, which does not aim to provide definitive answers and conclusions, but to make visible a wide spectrum of possible correspondences between generations, historical contexts, and different - sometimes divergent - artistic mediums.

Looking from the present toward the past, the micro-selection of artists highlights multifaceted typologies of the sacred-profane antinomy. In this retrospective inquiry, the theme under reflection traces the way in which what appears sacred transgresses the boundaries of art history and local historical circumstances, while what appears profane often retains references to the sacred iconic. 

What was once an explicit symbol of the sacred may today be emptied of its original meaning, while other symbolic forms make indirect references to spirituality through technique, quotation, reference, or appropriation. ICONOFLUX traces precisely this flux of the iconic between the sacred and the profane, revealing the persistence of forms and formulas that transcend historical and generational circumstances.

Lina Țărmure works as a cultural manager and curator. She completed her bachelor's (2021) and master's (2023) degrees at the Faculty of Art History and Theory, National University of Arts in Bucharest. In 2019 she co-founded Diptych Art Space, and she currently serves as director of the Arsmonitor gallery in Bucharest.