GHENT.- S.M.A.K. presents a major exhibition dedicated to the work of Ana Lupas, one of the leading artists from Eastern Europe. On Ritual Time has been conceived in the final phase of Lupas’s artistic career and life. Alongside her own work, the exhibition also features works by her late partner, the artist S P A T A R U. The exhibition thus takes on the character of a deeply personal artistic testament, looking back on seven decades of a multifaceted body of work, ranging from textile art to monumental in situ projects.

Ana Lupas (b. 1940, Cluj-Napoca, Romania) has devoted seven decades to artistic practice, initially working with textiles. Drawing on inherited techniques such as weaving, sewing, knotting and braiding, she developed a contemporary visual language at a time when Fiber Art was emerging as an artistic movement. A monumental presentation of her earliest textile works, Prapori 1961–1964, comprising 53 free-standing textile works never displayed in their entirety, is one of the exhibition’s highlights.

Lupas’ engagement with crafts, ancestral knowledge, rituals, and spiritual traditions was further expressed through collaborative works with rural and peasant communities and monumental in situ projects. The exhibition presents some of her most important works such as Wreaths of August (1964-2008) and Humid Installation (1970). Drawing on rural traditions, rituals, and forms of collective labour associated with the harvest, both works expand the possibilities of artistic form while reconceiving art as a social practice rooted in communal experience. While revealing affinities with neo-avant-garde movements such as performance, actions and Land Art, Lupas’s work remains deeply rooted in the cultural and historical context of Transylvania.

An exhibition as a ritual gesture

In addition to the production of new work, Lupas regularly revisits and reconfigures existing works, letting them evolve with changing social and political contexts. A similar cyclical understanding of artistic production shapes the exhibition, which brings together rarely exhibited works; some presented in new configurations.

The inclusion of works by Romanian artist S P A T A R U (Mircea Spătaru, 1937-2011) further opens the exhibition toward questions of shared memory, loss, and artistic transmission. Throughout his artistic career, he developed an oeuvre marked by constant research and experimentation. As both an artist and a teacher, S P A T A R U, like Lupas, left a significant mark on subsequent generations of artists in Romania. On Ritual Time therefore becomes more than an art-historical presentation: it can be comprehended as a ritual of remembrance in itself.

First institutional exhibition in Belgium

This is Ana Lupas’ first institutional exhibition in Belgium and is accompanied by the publication of a monograph dedicated to her oeuvre, a co-production between Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz; and S.M.A.K.

Over the past years, Ana Lupas’s oeuvre has undergone a strong international reappraisal. Her works are included in major institutional collections such as Tate Modern, London; Mus�e National d’art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz; Museion Bolzano; and the Ludwig Museum, Budapest.

S.M.A.K. presents Ana Lupas’s work as part of its commitment to broadening the canon of Western art. As a female artist from Romania, Lupas offers a perspective that challenges dominant narratives of post-war and contemporary art, while drawing attention to artistic practices shaped by different political, social and cultural contexts.