SERBAN SAVU

Serban Savu's installation What Work Is in the Romanian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2024 has been widely acclaimed. His project intervenes in the representational history of the laboring body, composing a complex iconography of work and leisure, primarily driven by a study of historical realism and its ideologies, as well as of the propaganda art of the Eastern Bloc. With purposefully anachronic instruments, Savu reflects on the contemporary world as a landscape of labor and alienation, where the boundaries that define "what work is" twist and shift to assimilate life in all its aspects, to transform it into a transactional asset.

Serban Savu, born 1978 in Sighisoara, Romania, lives and works in Cluj. He represented Romania at the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale, 2024.

Solo exhibitions include: Golden Ages, Galeria Plan B, Berlin (2025); What Work Is, The Romanian National Pavilion, in the 60th Venice Biennale, Giardini della Biennale, Venice (2024); Makeovers, National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Bucharest (2021); Serban Savu – Echinoctiu, Kunsthalle Bega, Timisoara (2020); Serban Savu - En __dérive, Le Lait Centre D'art Contemporain, Albi (2019); Heroes, Saints and Other Figures, Plan B, Berlin (2018); Serban Savu, Museo Pietro Canonica a Villa Borghese, Rome (2018); Pictures at an Exhibition, Galeria Plan B, Berlin (2015); Close to Nature, David Nolan Gallery, New York (2011).

Group exhibitions include: One Eye Laughing, the Other Crying. Art From Romania. Ovidiu Șandor Collection, The International Cultural Centre, Krakow (2025); The Twist: Failing Empires, Triumphant Provinces, National Museum of Contemporary Art, MNAC Bucharest, Bucharest (2024): Reenactment – Recostituire il passato, Galleria D'arte Accademia di Romania, Rome (2024); Remembering Peace, Kyiv Biennial, Augarten Contemporary, Vienna (2023); The Twist. Five Provincial Stories from an Empire, Kunsthalle Bega, Timisoara (2023); Looking Anew and Beyond, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke (2023); Lost in the Moment That Follows, Ways of Collecting: Ovidiu Șandor Collection, Kunsthalle Prague, Prague (2023); Culturi agricole. Agricultura în arta românească modernă și contemporană, Museum of Recent Art, Bucharest (2022); The Influencing Machine, Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw (2022); Art and The City 1974-2021, Museum of Recent Art, Bucharest (2021); Geta Bratescu, __Adrian Ghenie, Ciprian Muresan, Serban Savu, Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome (2019); Ciprian Muresan __and Serban Savu, L'entretien infini, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018-2019); La Brique, the Brick, Caramida, La Kunsthalle, Mulhouse (2019); Ex-East, past and recent stories of the Romanian Avant- Garde, Espace Niemeyer, Paris (2019); ... HOUNDED BY EXTERNAL EVENTS ..., Maureen Paley, London (2016); Landscapes After Ruskin: __Redefining The Sublime, Hall Art Foundation, New York (2016); Appearance and Essence, Art Encounters Biennial, Timisoara (2015); Tracing Shadows, PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2015); Defaced, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, Colorado (2014); Romanian Scenes, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris (2013); Hotspot Cluj. New Romanian Art, ARKEN Museum for Modern Art, Ishoj, Denmark (2013).

Courtesy Galeria Plan B