Romania’s Culture Ministry has selected the 90-year-old artist Geta Brătescu as its representative for the 2017 Venice Biennale. Brătescu’s project, Geta Brătescu — Appearances, won her this honor after receiving the highest score during the second phase of the Culture Ministry’s selection process. Magda Radu, a curator and art historian at Romania’s MNAC National Museum of Contemporary Art who assisted with the project, will curate the pavilion.
Brătescu’s art career has spanned the past 50 years and seen the artist working in multiple mediums, from textiles and sculpture to film, photography and drawing. In that time, Brătescu has participated in the biennale twice—in 1960, as part of a group exhibition, and again in 2013 at the Central Pavilion, alongside fellow Romanian artists Ștefan Bertalan and Andra Ursuta.
The committee responsible for selecting Brătescu’s project included, amongst others, the architect and previous Romanian pavilion commissioner, Atilla Kim; Călin Dan, the general director of MNAC; and Anca Drăgoi, Romania’s state secretary in the Ministry of Culture and National Identity.