The structuring principles of the Department of Theory, Education, Research were devised in relation with the formative requirements specific to the vocational education within the National University of Arts in Bucharest, as well as in agreement with the European academic standards generalized through the Bologna process.

This Department includes the study program of Art Pedagogy, as well as a Master’s studies program of Education through visual arts. Similarly, there is a research team operating within the Department.

The Department is a continuator of the prestigious teaching tradition, a century and a half old, of theoretical subjects fundamental to artistic training – artistic anatomy, perspective, philosophy and aesthetics, foreign languages – to which we added a series of formative subjects (electives) over time.

The formative-instructive activity within this department is designed in agreement with the radical changes of the intellectual, cultural and socio-political environment, in which the professional artist in the field of visual arts is currently placed, an environment which changed the traditional artistic manual skills as previously theorized under “techne” or “ars”. In this new context of transition from the paradigm of manual labor to the paradigm of research and production of complex artistic projects – directed by a conceptual imagination and theoretical knowledge – the Department of Theory, Education and Research becomes an essential part in producing artistic achievements which will be finalized in Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctorate dissertations. In this context, the theoretical subjects taught in the Department go beyond the mere needs of information, general knowledge and intellectual refinement, becoming a fundamental resource for the artistic creation and career orientation.

In essence, the Department of Theory, Education and Research operates based on the principle of multidisciplinarity and unification of artistic practices with theoretical practices aiming, at the level of strategic objectives, at stimulating the students’ and Master students’ creativity. At the same time, the educational activity promoted within this department continuously maintains a dynamic balance between subjects which constitute the identitary nucleus of the European culture tradition and the current intellectual challenges, generated by the “global and informational era”.

The continuity, coherence, consistency, mobility and openness to renewal, the attachment to students and Master students, the institutional and peer solidarity, the permanent educational dialogue represent for the members of the Department of Theory, Education and Research both achievement values and natural conditions for daily teaching activities.

The specialization Pedagogy of Fine and Decorative Arts was established within the National University of Arts in Bucharest in 1992 and organized day courses for the duration of five, four and three years, respectively – the latter duration of studies being preserved – with the mission of training graduates who, besides mastering the fundamental language of visual arts, are also initiated in the specificity of fine and decorative arts. Through its curriculum and the methods employed, the program Art Pedagogy offers students a double specialization: artistic and didactic. In this sense, the curricula includes fundamental plastic subjects, complementary plastic and decorative subjects, general technical-theoretical subjects, as well as the standard psychological-pedagogical module (module I).

The specialization Art Pedagogy was the first among the specializations within the National University of Arts in Bucharest which, in 1997, initiated the continuation of Bachelor’s studies through the one-year Postgraduate program. This postgraduate program was subject of transformations under the law and, as it became a Master program, it also became a two-year program in 2002, year which also marked the graduation of the first Bachelor’s class of four years. The Master’s program operated in this formula until 2009.

The Master program in Education through Visual Arts was established and accredited within the National University of Arts in Bucharest in 2010, within the Faculty of Fine Arts, as part of the study program Pedagogy of Fine and Decorative Arts. This Master program addresses all graduates in the field of fine and decorative arts who wish to train in non-formal education.

The Master’s specialization provides on the one hand the consolidation of the artistic personality and on the other hand, it equips the graduates with psycho-pedagogical abilities meant to allow them to manifest themselves within areas of non-formal education. The Master program provides an interdisciplinary training through: the compulsory mastery courses whose content and objectives involve redefining, reinterpreting and approaching from contemporary perspectives the plastic / decorative image; the pedagogical training for addressing the non-formal areas in order to develop the Master students’ abilities to apply coherent educational strategies in conformity with all age groups as well as with the variety of areas to which the educational techniques should be adapted (museums, after-schools, a.o.); the psycho-pedagogical training necessary to a competent approach of the different age groups and various psychological states and stages.

The assets of the two specializations are common and consist of 4 studio rooms.

The Department emerged in 1995, at the initiative of a group of artists (Iosif Kiraly, Radu Igazsag, Calin Dan, Roxana Trestioreanu) interested in the role of the new media in artistic education. In 2005, the National Council for Academic Evaluation and Accreditation accredited the Department, and in 2009 accredited the Photography and Dynamic Image specialization at the level of Master’s studies. The mission of the Department is the same as that of the University and aims to promote artistic education and research, Romanian culture and art.

Within a traditional educational system, the specialization promotes the new technologies. The artistic subjects (drawing, color, performance, installation, video, photography, a.o.) are organized from the perspective of transdisciplinarity, of the dialogue put forward by the aesthetic and multimedia theories. The artistic education offered by the Department enables students to think imaginatively, solve visual issues, adapt easily to diverse situations and know and overcome their artistic boundaries. Nationally and internationally acknowledged, the Photo, Video, Computerized Image Processing Department addresses those who wish to develop their photographic and cinematic aptitudes in an artistic environment. The students will acquire valuable knowledge, based on standards and professional practice. The traditional techniques film – analogue are presented alongside the technology of digital image, while experimental and alternative techniques of image capturing and processing are explored. Basic knowledge for the carrying out of projects – promoting products or events, marketing, communication strategies – are taught within elective and specialized courses. The familiarity with “new media” technologies and theories offer our graduates the opportunity to train for a career in the field of visual and media communications, including web design consulting, DVD and CD-ROM design, advertising, publications or freelance artists.

Ever since the beginning of its activity, the Department aimed to promote a positive and clear image of its strategy through organizing cultural events, and participating in artistic and educational events: the seminars “Gender and Ageing presented in Media and Art”, “Timing Art /Filtering Art” and “The Impact of Technology on the Visual Culture” were selected and presented within the project Good Practice on the site of the European League of Institutes of the Arts. Another important event was the organization of the International Experimental Film Festival UNARTE FEST in 2008. The research project Ro_archive was presented in the handbook “artesNET- Peer Power! The Future of Higher Arts Education in Europe” of the European League of Institutes of the Arts. The project helped the Department become involved in a project of the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Bucharest, “EEA & Norway Grants Instantanee: retrospective si oportunitati” (EEA & Norway Grants Snapshots: retrospectives and opportunities”).

Participations (selections from 2007-2012):

Student Cristian Ionescu’s film was selected at the One Minute festival in Gent, Belgium, in 2007; in 2009, Michele Bressan was awarded the Great Prize and Cristina Vadu received the second prize of the Essl Museum Foundation in Austria; the works of students Bogdan Garbovan, Cristian Ionescu, Michele Bressan and Daniel Djamo were selected at the Nue – New Festival between 2009-2011. Works of our students were included in a different selection, “Badly Happy: Pain, Pleasure and Panic in Recent Romanian Art”, 2010, at the Performance Art Institute (PAI) in San Francisco, curator Erwin Kessler and Stephen Tourell; a selection of photography by students was presented in 2011 within the “New Wave Photography – Young Artists from Central and Eastern Europe” The Crypt Gallery (St Pancras), UK; from 2008 to the present, the winners of the Romanian selection in the annual competition of the Graduates of Art Universities in Europe, “Start Point Prize”, were students in the Photo, Video, Computerized Image Processing Department in NUAB, whose works enjoyed a great appreciation in the international exhibitions organized in the Czech Republic. Michele Bressan’s portfolio was selected by GATE11 – International Departures – Fondazione Fotografia Modena.

Dragos Bardac’s film, “Life Buoy”, 2010, won Best Music Video at the Filmul De Piatra Festival in Piatra Neamt, was selected in the FESTIVAL TEMPS D’IMAGES 2010, in Cluj-Napoca at the Romanian Film Days 2011, in Vienna at the Biennial of Creative Video in collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum, selected for Cooper Video Wall at the Cooper Design Space Building, San Francisco. But certainly the most important event in which one of our Department’s graduates, Bogdan Bordeianu, was involved is the competition “reGeneration2: Tomorrow’s Photographers Today” organized by Musée de l’Elysée Lausanne, which concluded with an itinerant exhibition in Cape Town, Milan, Pingyao, Miami, Budapest, New York, a.o., and with a catalogue published by Thames & Hudson (Paris/London).

International Projects in which the Dynamic Image and Photography Department is involved

>> https://www.facebook.com/pages/Timecase-Memory-in-action/459118874154052
>> https://www.facebook.com/peercoaching.tondela
>> http://www.elia-artschools.org/activities/eq-arts
>> http://www.elia-artschools.org/activities/interartes
>> http://www.elia-artschools.org/activities/artesneteurope
>> http://www.elia-artschools.org/activities/share
>> http://www.elia-artschools.org/news/bogdan-grbovan

Documents of the Dynamic Image and Photography Department

>> Admission Exam for M.A. Studies Academic Year 2013-2014

The Sculpture Department is among the first structures of the Belle-Arte School in Bucharest, the first professor, Karl Stork, being appointed on the 2nd of January 1865; he was seconded by Ioan Georgescu and Vladimir Hégel. Subsequently, numerous great Romanian sculptors became professors in the Department, and we name here only Dimitrie Paciurea, Oscar Han or Ion Lucian Murnu; Constantin Brancusi similarly trained within the department between 1898 and 1902.

The teaching activities within the Department aim at training new generations of artists, responsive to the newest artistic realities of the present times, capable to manifest themselves freely in the contemporary context, but also being familiar with an artistic tradition older than a hundred years; the attitude that always guided the artistic education in Bucharest was the balanced combination between tradition and an openness to experiment and renewal. Within the Department, the future sculptor shapes his / her creative personality under the systematic guidance of the teaching personnel consisting of experienced artists, professionals in the field; consequently, s/he acquires a method of individual study in the field of drawing, modeling and composition which helps the development of his / her abilities of experimental research; simultaneously with acquiring a three-dimensional visual expression, s/he will be perfectly capable to search for, assimilate and synthesize the informational resources, to express him/herself plastically through creatively employing traditional or nonconventional materials, to relate volumes with the ambient space, to experiment with varied means of expression. The current teaching personnel in the Department is selected from our best graduates who follow in the footsteps of renowned artists who were also accomplished professors.

The premises of the Department offer individual workshops to groups organized on years of study and dedicated workshops equipped with the necessary working tools and furniture; the warehouses storing supplies permanently provide students with the necessary materials for study or transfer. The workshops dedicated to transfers in plaster, stone, wood and metal are similarly modernly equipped, with an almost complete range of specific tools; the existence of three-phase electrical sources in the workshops for transfer in stone and metal allows for using tools and machines with an industrial performance and efficiency, which partly supports the artistic and expressive quality of transfers.

The Graphic Arts Department aims at training multi-disciplinary specialists in the area of graphic arts, be they visual artists who can carry out their activities in diverse environments and employ different techniques, or specialists in the applied areas specific to graphic arts. The multitude of directions in which are students are trained during the three years of Bachelor’s studies bring together the autonomous artistic creation in the field of visual arts, engraving and multiplication techniques, advertising graphics, book graphics, illustration and the art of writing, digital image processing or photographic image seen as an element circumscribed to graphic creation.

Within our Department, a special emphasis is placed on acquiring rigorous skills based on drawing and visual composition, seen as constitutive elements in the formation of the plastic alphabet and as starting points for any type of future artistic endeavor. In parallel, the development of each student’s creative potential is capitalized on constantly, through encouraging the individual artistic discourse, through gaining a critical understanding of the evolution of the visual phenomenon in general and of the contemporary visual phenomenon in particular, as well as through the continuous responsiveness to the new trends. With respect to the applied fields, it is worth mentioning that there is a constant preoccupation among the teaching personnel in the Department with correlating the educational process with the market’s concrete demands through the carrying out of orders for real clients, as an integral part of class projects, aiming to familiarize the students during their studies with the exigencies of their future professional activity.

The Graphic Arts Department owns six studios for the core subjects – two for each year of study –, two specialized engraving laboratories equipped with engraving press, letterpress and lithography press, a photo laboratory and a computer laboratory equipped with Macintosh and PC systems. Through their training and experience, the teaching personnel ensures the students’ training in the various subjects and specializations mentioned above; the educational process is enriched periodically with workshops and lectures organized within the Department, to which specialists in specific fields who come from outside the academic environment are invited to share their experience.

The Painting Department was one of the fundamental pillars on which the artistic academic education in Bucharest was built all through its long history, and continues to remain one of the most important departments in the National University of Arts.

Starting with Theodor Aman, the first director of the first superior school of arts and up to the present moment, the Painting Department educated and trained a whole group of artists whose works contributed substantially to enriching the national and (why not) universal patrimony.

Ioan Andreescu, Stefan Luchian, Gheorghe Petrascu, Camil Ressu, Corneliu Baba, Alexandru Ciucurencu, Ion Bitzan, Florin Mitroi, former students or professors of the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest are just a few of the significant names in Romanian art history.

After a long period of crass political interferences, in 1990 the artistic education in Bucharest began to respond to the interwar tradition, as well as to resynchronize with the European liberal and democratic tradition.

After 1990, artists with great visibility and pedagogical openness were recruited as members of the new teaching body, such as Gheorghe Anghel, Stefan Caltia, Florin Ciubotaru, Marin Gherasim, Sorin Ilfoveanu and others.

The diversity of pedagogical options is mainly formative, the courses aiming at developing abilities specific to visual arts as well as at creating a basis for a profound understanding of the contemporary cultural space.

The courses aim and contribute to the effort of synchronizing Romanian visual arts with international contemporary preoccupations, as well as to stimulating the formation of the future professional’s own plastic language.

The symposia and the exhibitions organized within various public spaces and galleries constitute a natural extension of the pedagogical activity during the years of study.