The Pittner School Cultural Center invites the public to the finishing of the exhibition “The End is Over”, by artist Nicolae Comănescu who captures post-industrial Reșița in over 50 paintings and documentary photographs. The event will take place on Tuesday, July 15, at 6:00 PM at the Pittner School Cultural Center (Strada Furnalelor 13).

During the closing event, the volume “Homemade Cultural. Playing with the Open House”, author Jean-Lorin Sterian, will be launched, published in the Perspektiv collection, Litera Publishing House, a collection coordinated by Cosmin Perța. Homemade is a term that writer Jean-Lorin Sterian uses to capture the interaction between art and domestic space.

“After four years, Nicolae Comănescu returns to Reșița, augur, with a second stage in the SCRAP METAL KABOOM ORCHESTRA series, this time in a determined photo-documentary framework, leaving, as it were, to nature, its permanence to complete an almost palpable “end” of the iron of yesteryear. And where the photographic image does not sufficiently encompass its signified, it intervenes and places, palimpsestically, the non-color white as an interpretation grid, a refined reconsideration of time-trap – perhaps in a novel and paradoxical sense, that of the “safety net”. Often suggesting (white) birds in flight!“ Ada Cruceanu-Chisăliță

Nicolae Comănescu graduated in 1998 from the painting department of the University of Arts in Bucharest, in the group coordinated by Ion Sălișteanu. Comănescu formed in the dense clouds of cigarette smoke, the group Rostopasca (1997-2004) together with Angela Bontaș, Dumitru Gorzo, Alina Pențac, a group that marked the years of transition from socialism to capitalism. Humor, irony, social intelligence, versatility and civic protest spirit are attributes that made the artist a survivor of life in the city. Also nicknamed the star of Berceni (the neighborhood where Comănescu lives), he showed a major interest in the theme of recycling, the accumulation of matter and its reuse in various aspects, from dust, slag, ash from the grills of small children, cement and adobe, to textiles and objects from his household inventory.

Jean-Lorin Sterian is an artist, writer and researcher. Between 2008 and 2015, he opened the Lorgean Theatre, the first living room theatre in Romania. He has published the novels Lorgean (2007) and Whoreshop (2019), as well as several volumes of short stories and poetry. He has had two solo exhibitions: Exuviation (Vienna, 2022) and The World Sees You As It Is (Zagreb, 2023). Since 2018, he has been active in the musical-performance project pj.lo & the accidentals. In 2024, he moved to Timișoara.

Art critic, literary critic, curator, writer, translator, Doctor of Philology from the West University of Timişoara (2001), member of the Writers’ Union and the Society of Philological Sciences of Romania, Reşiţa Branch, Ada D. Cruceanu has been the editor of the magazine Reflex-artă, culture, civilization since 2000. Throughout her career, she has also collaborated in numerous periodicals such as: Arca, Ardealul literar Contemporanul, Convorbiri literare, Familia, Luceafărul, Orizont, Portal_Măiastra, Steaua, Studii de lingua, literatură și folclor” (Reșița), Transilvania, Tribuna, Vatra, Viaţa Românească.

About Pittner School
On Furnalelor Street no. 13 in the Historical Center of Reșița Montane, at the beginning of the first decades of the last century, in the midst of the economic and social expansion of the municipality of Reșița, the private primary school ’’Pittner Schule’’ operated, right in the Pittner family house, on its ground floor.
Between 2021-2025, the Pittner School Cultural Center was part of the “Program for Restoration and Revitalization of Cultural Heritage – Exhibition and Event Center – Pittner School-Reșița Municipality” – a project supported by the City Hall of Reșița through EEA Grants and the RO-Culture Program.
The building hosts local events that will help both to revitalize the historical monument and to improve the management of cultural heritage, by bringing it back to the attention of citizens. Local events will consist of film screenings, concerts, restoration/painting workshops or theatrical performances.

Credit cover photo: Daniel Pușcău.