IOMO Gallery marked five years of activity with the opening of the group exhibition “Progress Is Not A Straight Line,” bringing together both new works and pieces from the collection of the gallery’s founder, Florin Petrachi.
The exhibition includes works by Ángeles Agrela, Æmen Ededéen, Adrian Ghenie, Cathrin Hoffmann, Sea Hyun Lee, Jessie Makinson, Cristina de Miguel, Mie Olise Kjærgaard, Katherina Olschbaur, Gwen O’Neil, Emma Păvăloaia, Pedro Pedro, Bony Ramirez, Mircea Roman, Ecaterina Vrana and Nadia Waheed.
“To celebrate five years in Bucharest means accepting that progress in this city does not follow a linear trajectory. It unfolds in cycles, in ‘hills and valleys,’ as Lucian Blaga once observed. At this symbolic threshold of half a decade, IOMO Gallery looks back at a path defined not by constant ascent, but by organic growth, built over time and with intention.
In the Romanian imagination, hills and valleys are not merely forms of landscape, but essential stages of becoming. For IOMO, the past five years have been an alternation of these states. They have crossed the valleys—those necessary periods of quiet, inner reflection, and silent work that happens when clouds gather. These phases did not represent stagnation, but rather the very soil in which their values took root. Then came the hills—moments of collective effervescence in which the heights of creative revelation and the joy of having a vision became fully real.
Respecting this rhythm, they have sought to protect the essence of what they do. Titu Maiorescu warned of the danger of ‘form without substance’: adopting the external form of a society—a fragile appearance—while ignoring its essential internal factors. It is easy to construct a ‘form’: a white cube, a digital presence, a calendar of events. It is far more difficult to cultivate the essence of what a gallery represents. Whether it is the connection between artist and audience, the integrity of a long-term dialogue, or the importance placed on supporting the new generation of contemporary artists.
Over the course of these five years, the gallery has become a body in itself. Its walls have absorbed the stories of each exhibition, while its floor has recorded the footsteps of a growing community. The anniversary exhibition is an invitation to read these traces. It is an archive of the gallery’s ‘body,’ imbued with its history while imagining a vision for the future.
IOMO Gallery celebrates this moment not as a destination, but as a confirmation of the direction it has chosen. Learning that true progress is organic, not imposed—and that the ability to remain faithful to one’s own ethos, amid the shifting waves of the art world, is in itself a form of progress.”
— Thom Oosterhof
The exhibition is open to the public from until April 18, 2026.
