The exhibition "The colors of 'thaw'. The Bessarabian village in the painting of the 1960s", which presents the creations of 14 masters from the left of the Prut river, who stood out for their contribution to the renewal of the plastic language of the moment, opened on Thursday in the New Gallery hall at the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant.

The ambassador of the Republic of Moldova in Romania, Victor Chirila, said at the opening that the exhibition represents "a project that documents the artistic activity of painters from Chisinau and highlights their innovation efforts, in the context of the Khrushchevist 'thaw' of the 60s, ( ...) prolific for the art world of the Republic of Moldova".

He reminded Mihail Grecu, Valentina Rusu Ciobanu, Ada Zevin, Glebus Sainciuc, Igor Vieru, trained at the schools of fine arts in Bucharest and Iasi, who irreversibly marked the evolution of Bessarabian plastic art.

The president of the Union of Visual Artists of the Republic of Moldova, the painter Sorina Breazu, emphasized that art "carries messages of peace, joy, hope", and "finding art from the Republic of Moldova in the Romanian space does nothing but unite us and discover ourselves reciprocally".

The curator of the exhibition, Ludmila Toma, stated that Bessarabian painters approached the world of the village, "a source of life, in the '60s, when the vision of the world became more optimistic, as a result of the Khrushchevist 'thaw'.

The Bessarabian art critic Constantin I. Ciobanu highlighted, for his part, the fact that the works represent a fertile period of plastic art across the Prut, the so-called "thaw", when the Bessarabian artists "still managed to create this unmistakable 'school' of Moldovan painting', to give it a significant profile".

Plastic artist Dumitri Sibaev was present, and conveyed a message from the painter Olga Orlova.

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The exhibition "The colors of 'thaw'. The Bessarabian village in the painting of the 1960s" presents, mostly, unknown creations, coming from the artists' family collections, from private collections, supplemented with works from the heritage of the Union of Plastic Artists of the Republic of Moldova and from the National Museum of History of Moldova.

Works with a rural theme signed by artists Mihail Grecu, Valentina Rusu Ciobanu, Ada Zevin, Glebus Sainciuc, Igor Vieru, Gheorghe Jancov, Eleonora Romanescu, Olga Orlova, Elena Bontea, Sergiu Cuciuc, Sergiu Galben, Ludmila tonceva, Vasile Toma, Victor Tretiacenco, are on display.

In addition to the paintings, the organizers included personal objects of the artists, a documentary film about the artist Glebus Sanciuc, promoter of masks inspired by popular tradition ("Glebus", 1983, director: V. Jereghi), as well as a rich collection of art publications, from the National Library of the Republic of Moldova and private collections.

The exhibition speech is completed by the projection of a video material, produced by the Arbor Association, which clarifies the historical and cultural context in which Bessarabian artists lived and worked, with explanations and testimonies brought by art historians Ludmila Toma, Constantin I. Ciobanu and Tudor Stavila.

The exhibition is part of the "Grecu Rusu Ciobanu and others. Redefining aesthetics in Bessarabia in the 1960s" cultural project organized by the Arbor Association, in partnership with the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in Romania, the Union of Plastic Artists of the Republic of Moldova, the National Museum of History of Moldova, the National Library of the Republic of Moldova and ARCUB - the Cultural Center of the Municipality of Bucharest.

It represents a continuation of the effort made by the Arbor Association to popularize, among the Romanian public, the artistic creation of the most important names of contemporary art from Bessarabia, it documents the artistic activity of painters of Chisinau and highlights the innovation efforts in the context of the Khrushchevist "thaw", a historical period that has as its consequence a relaxation of the vision, a refreshment of the plastic language, which gains in casualness and chromatic intensity.

A project co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration, the exhibition can be visited until May 19, from Wednesday to Sunday.

The AGERPRES National News Agency is media partner of the event.AGERPRES(RO - author: Daniel Popescu, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - editor: Maria Voican)