Art Encounters Biennial 2023 | National Art Museum Timisoara

The 5th edition of the Art Encounters Biennial My Rhino is not a Myth focuses on the intersection between art, science and fictions, by exploring their potential to reclaim reality as a mesh of complex processes. In between scientific explorations and imaginative speculation, it touches upon stories of the unknown and the drive to change, adapt or subvert.

About location:

The National Museum of Art Timisoara offers a broad perspective on Banat’s heritage of the past two hundred years, as a result of the confluence of the post-Byzantine Balkan tradition and the innovative language of European Baroque art, brought to the region by the Catholic Reformation. As of 2006, the National Museum of Art Timișoara has been housed in the Baroque Palace as an independent institution hosting the following collections: the European Fine Arts Collection (Renaissance and Baroque), the European Decorative Art Collection, the Banat Art Collection (19th century easel painting and collection of icons), the Romanian Modern Art Collection, the Corneliu Baba Collection, the Contemporary Art Collection. In the past years, a series of upgrades were made to the security, fire protection and air-conditioning of the museum, which allows the National Museum of Art Timișoara to ensure excellent safety and exhibiting conditions for the 2023 event program.

About Exhibition:

In 1515, Albrecht Dürer created his renowned Rhinocerus in response to a strange encounter: the first rhino since antiquity to travel to the European continent. But Dürer had never seen the depicted animal. Ganda, by its Gujarati name, drowned before reaching its destination. Its voyage around the world mapped a geopolitical trajectory and reminds us that less-known stories of exploitation and violence overshadowed the histories of exploration and discovery. Engaging with other works of fiction, such as Eugène Ionesco’s Theatre of the Absurd entitled Rhinocéros, the biennial follows the stories inspired by Ganda, reclaiming the imaginative play of science and art in an entangled world marked by environmental and societal transformations.


Artists: Megan Dominescu, Sahil Naik

Curatorial team: Cristina Bută, Monica Dănilă, Edith Lázár, Ann Mbuti, Adrian Notz, Cristina Stoenescu, Georgia Țidorescu

INFO POINT – Art Encounters Foundation, Bd. Take Ionescu 46C

The program of all exhibition spaces:
Wednesday – Sunday, 12:00 – 20:00

National Museum of Art Timisoara:
Wednesday – Sunday, 13:00 – 21:00

*Free entry, unless otherwise stated

**This program may undergo changes in the following period, please check the updates on our website at: 2023.artencounters.ro

*** For appointments: contact@artencounters.ro / 0792 310 052

The Art Encounters Biennial is an event organised by The Art Encounters Foundation and is financed by the Municipality of Timișoara through the Center for Projects and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and the Administration of the National Cultural Fund, with Raiffeisen Bank as main partner and ISHO, TAZZ, MEWI and DacoArt as sponsors.

Part of

Bienala Art Encounters 2023, My Rhino is not a Myth. Art-Science-Fictions

Bienala Art Encounters 2023, My Rhino is not …