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Alexandra Mocan

@alexndra_mocan

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visual artist based in cluj-napoca
co-founder & curator of @matcaartspace / @rezidenta_forward / @rubik_space / @twisted__lullabies

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Cooking something up with @alexndra_mocan . Super sneak preview of Through the cracks where flowers bloom (work in progress). See you later this autumn at @atelierpatru , curated by Alexandra Mocan
📷 @alexndra_mocan
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#exhibition #wip #romagavrila #resilience #resilienceofnature by @alexndra_mocan

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3 months ago

Few days left to visit the show 𝐎𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐔𝐩𝐨𝐧 𝐚 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐲 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 @contemporar.galerie – where one of my latest works is displayed
(open until the 1st of Aug)

Shapeshifting Attempt
2026
Styrofoam, plaster, acrylic paint, spray paint
42 x 55 x 42 cm

Shapeshifting Attempt reflects on growing up in an Eastern European urban environment and on the continuous process of transforming beyond inherited conditions, where the home operates as origin and weight. Drawing from the architecture of the apartment block, a defining structure of collective childhood memory, the work traces how lived environments carry emotional residues that shape identity over time.

The notion of shapeshifting functions here as a metaphor for personal reinvention. It draws from the desire to move beyond inherited traumas, social limitations, and established narratives while carrying fragments of them into the future. Presented as a dollhouse, the work reimagines the tension between play and enclosure, where familiar domestic forms contain states of longing, frustration, anger, and trapped emotional energy accumulated over time. It suggests a body in constant mutation, negotiating between what is carried and what can be redefined.

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Exhibiting along Loredana Ilie, Ruxandra Nițescu, Andriana Oborocean, Ioana Rusu, Bianca Serenciuc, Lorena Buta
Curated by Gabriela Moldovan @at.gabrielaaa

Photos by Cezar Cîmpeanu and Roland Vaczi by @alexndra_mocan

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3 months ago

𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘈𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵 - Alexandra Mocan

🔸În 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘈𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵, Alexandra Mocan ne propune o incursiune acasă, unde formele domestice familiare conțin stări de neîmplinire și energie emoțională acumulată în timp. Aici, casa de păpuși împrumută arhitectura est-europeană a blocului de locuințe și este o metaforă a reinventării personale, pentru că, așa cum sugerează artista, mediile în care trăim acumulează reziduuri emoționale și ne modelează identitatea. ⛓

🔸Alexandra Mocan (n. 1991, Cluj-Napoca) e artistă vizuală, curatoare și cofondatoare MATCA artspace. Abordarea sa artistică navighează între pesimism și optimism, fiind adesea marcată de ironie, reziliență și o căutare constantă a unor modalități de a îmbunătăți condițiile sociale și umane.

➡ Lucrarea face parte din expoziția 𝐎𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐔𝐩𝐨𝐧 𝐀 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐈𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐎𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐲 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞, care este deschisă până pe 1 august. by @alexndra_mocan

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3 months ago

"JOY SAUCE IN THE BELLY"
Artist: William Ludwig Lutgens @williamludwiglutgens
Curated by: Alexandra Mocan @alexndra_mocan
📍MATCA artsapce, Calea Turzii 21, 400347 Cluj-Napoca, Romania @matcaartspace
22.05-22.06.2026

Read the complete text on lowgroundpressure.blog web platform (🔗 in stories).

📸 Yap Studio / Mădălin Mărgăritescu @yap.studio / @m.dox, courtesy the artist and the gallery;

#contemporaryart #artisttoday #lowgroundpressure #arttoday #artist taken in Cluj-Napoca by @alexndra_mocan

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3 months ago

“Joy Sauce in the Belly”

Artist: William Ludwig Lutgens @williamludwiglutgens

On view: @matcaartspace
22.05.2026-22.06.2026

“You find yourself yawning, but that doesn’t mean you are able to sleep.”

Like a suspended state of exhaustion, almost fuelled by a sleep paralysis-like condition, Joy Sauce in the Belly unfolds as a sequence of caricatural characters emerging like hallucinatory projections.
A mass of figures perform in various forms throughout the exhibition, oscillating between parody and psychological breakdown. Instinctively exploring humankind through anecdotes that slowly slip into darker territories of pleasure and suffering, William Ludwig Lutgens choreographs and performs his works at the same time, becoming both protagonist and source for his ongoing preoccupations with burnout, co-dependency, power relations, attachment and emotional exhaustion. Props and caricatural apparitions wearing wigs reveal their flesh like zombified carnations - decomposing, almost slipping out of their own skin.“

Curator and text author: Alexandra Mocan @alexndra_mocan

All photos are the courtesy of the artist and @yap.studio @m.dox by @alexndra_mocan

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3 months ago

Nu toate casele de păpuși arată așa cum le știm, unele sunt create pentru a readuce lumea la locul ei sau pentru a ne imagina cum ar putea arăta dacă am fi noi cei care stabilim regulile.

📍 Pe 9 iulie, de la ora 19:00, te invităm la Contemporar, la un tur ghidat al expoziției 𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑈𝑝𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑅𝑜𝑜𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑛𝑦 𝐷𝑜𝑙𝑙ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒, alături de curatoarea Gabriela Moldovan. O ocazie să descoperi referințele care au stat la baza expoziției și să observi detalii și straturi de interpretare care pot trece ușor neobservate într-o vizită individuală.

Pornind de la casa de păpuși ca univers miniatural construit și personalizat, expoziția explorează jocul ca mod de a înțelege, negocia și reconfigura realitatea. Un spațiu în care experimentul, ludicul și creativitatea nu au vârstă, iar imaginația este, în sine, o formă de rezistență și libertate.

Și da, unele dintre piesele care compun lucrările pot fi atinse și folosite, pentru că joaca, în această expoziție, trebuie să fie experimentată.

𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞:

Alexandra Mocan, Ruxandra Nițescu, Ioana Rusu, Bianca Serenciuc, Loredana Ilie, Andriana Oborocean, Lorena Buta

📆 9 iulie, 19:00
📍Contemporar taken in Cluj-Napoca by @alexndra_mocan

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4 months ago

Alexandra Mocan (b. 1991, Cluj-Napoca; lives and works there) is a visual artist, curator, and co-founder of @matcaartspace , an artist-run space initiated in 2017. She holds an MA in Painting from UAD Cluj (2015) and develops her artistic practice at Unirea Studios, an industrial building located in an area currently undergoing a process of gentrification and hosting several artist studios.

Her artistic approach navigates the tension between pessimism and optimism, often infused with irony, resilience, and a continuous search for ways to improve social and human conditions. Drawing from Balkan culture, Asian philosophies, as well as themes of failure and decay, she integrates text as both a conceptual and formal element - sometimes through titles, other times within the works themselves. She frequently reinterprets existing objects, occasionally even clichés, and employs appropriation as a strategy to question notions of originality, speculating that inspiration can emerge from banalities.

See Mocan’s work at @scanteia_plus during the group show Peelings, curated by @murarboxana

→ Opening 12 February | 18:00

→ Visiting hours:
Thu - Sat: 14:00 - 18:00

→ On view until 12 March

Partner ALRO Slatina taken in Scânteia+ by @alexndra_mocan

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8 months ago

📣 We’re officially opening this 2026 season with the group show Peelings.

Bringing together four voices from the Romanian Contemporary Art scene, the exhibition reflects on how objects, materials and environments continuously adapt, react, and reveal new layers when shaped by external forces.

From rigid steel sculptures to immaterial video works, the exhibition reveals a setting where layers are removed piece by piece, exposing what is usually hidden underneath: traces of time, change and memory.

The exhibition features works by @alexndra_mocan @anaionscu @ana.petrovici @thealazar and is curated by @murarboxana

Opening

→ 12 February | 18:00h

See you all there ✨

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With the support of ALRO Slatina taken in Scânteia+ by @alexndra_mocan

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9 months ago

Finally posting some exhibition views from my previous solo show, Looking Forward to Look Back - which took place last month in Timișoara at Palatul Ștefania ✨

It took me a while to decide a selection of best photos, and I guess there are more to come, as I still want to share some details 🚀

Many thanks to everyone who supported me while working for the show, it's been a blast!

~This exhibition explores the uneasiness that arises from feeling out of control as time passes, and our relationship with its passing. It questions how the pressures to perform and achieve shape our priorities, sometimes leaving little room for personal autonomy in choosing how we spend our lives. Between the demands of daily tasks and the constant push to "check off" accomplishments, can we truly reclaim our time, or is it perpetually slipping into the domain of productivity and performance? Is there a way to recover our passed minutes, our past days - and what is past anyway, and what holds the future? Though many quantic theories suggest that time does not exist – our linearity is inevitable – while the physical time for us here is finite.

Through various perspectives, the exhibition contemplates the length of our lives and our perception of it, contrasting the Western world’s time-centric focus with more meditative approaches that invite viewers to observe different ways in which time can be perceived. (...)~

This artistic creation was funded by the Energie! Creation Grants, provided by the Municipality of Timișoara through Centrul de Proiecte. The creation does not necessarily represent the position of Centrul de Proiecte of the Municipality of Timișoara, and it is not responsible for its content or the way it may be used.

The project is organized in partnership with the Municipality of Timișoara, through the Centrul de Proiecte.

Most of the photos: Mihai Pînzaru / @sz.livestream
(some of the photos, mine) taken in Palatul Stefania by @alexndra_mocan

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2 years ago

Sharing some documentation of one of my latest works - Deadline Infinit - which was part of Cluj în Rezidență's group exhibition in November 🩶

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Deadline Infinite grows out of the chaotic rhythm of everyday life - the constant overload, the pressure of juggling work, personal life, and artistic practice, and the recurring illusion of free time that always seems to be unlocked “after the deadline.” This becomes the starting point for a work that places the sterility of office spaces in contrast with elements inspired by playgrounds and leisure environments, creating a slightly disorienting mood.

The project continues several themes that often appear in my practice: the contrast between functionality and the absurd, between control and vulnerability, between interior and exterior spaces. I’m drawn to enclosed, repetitive environments that become metaphors for psychological and physical blockages - places where the sense of time blurs and where staying connected to daily life becomes increasingly difficult.

The installation takes the form of a circular structure, somewhere between a desk, a carousel and a cage. Drawing from office culture, it imagines a small ecosystem shaped by continuous productivity and isolation. Here, moving in circles becomes a metaphor for routines that keep you stuck and for the effort to maintain control within a system that, in the end, wears you down.
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Photos &video by @cimpeanu_cezar and @rolandvaczi

Part of an artistic residency organized by @centrulculturalclujean
Exhibited at @contemporar.galerie by @alexndra_mocan

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10 months ago

All set and ready! See you tonight at 6pm at @contemporar.galerie

Here’s a photographic dive into some unflattering moments that reflect my experience with the @centrulculturalclujean Residency Program this year — where I created a work called Deadline Infinit, questioning exhaustion, productivity, and everything in between.

I honestly enjoyed the whole process, even though most days it felt like I wasn’t moving forward at all. Looking back, I can see how much every small step actually mattered.

Deadline Infinit will be on view starting November 11 at Contemporar, as part of Cluj în Rezidență’s exhibition - open until 28.11

#clujînrezidență #centrulculturalclujean #contemporar by @alexndra_mocan

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a year ago

Moodboard for a work in progress

Lately circles and enclosed spaces have been part of my artistic practice. Spinning in a loop is a performative movement that to me has the ability to describe the everyday -its routines, repetitions, and cyclical patterns. The narrative of the circle also interests me from a storytelling perspective: the myth of the hero, the oroboros, the Buddhist wheel of life/suffering, and the idea of returning to an initial state-only to come back more aware, etc. This fascinates me from a contemporary point of view - especially when thinking about work, loneliness, isolation, and the constant pressure to perform, to improve, especially in designed spaces where all these things take place.
The blankness of office spaces is something which interested me in my most recent work where i explored these ideas in parallel with architectural structures that embody circular or enclosed forms- spaces that can contain or encapsulate a single person performing a task.

My sources of inspiration have varied, and i gathered a few of them here - from local architectural encounters such as the water tower in the Alexandru Borza Botanical Garden, to the tower I pass each time I go to my studio, and various kiosks, or the film Kiosk Alliance by Mircea Nicolae and the sculptural environments of Louise Bourgeois. I was also drawn to control towers and returned to one of my favorite films, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, based on the novel by Horace McCoy, which revisits the dance marathons of the 1920s - where people were continuosly dancing for thousands of hours and running in circle in exchange for food (and a potential cash prize).

All these references come together in a structure designed for exhaustion - with a touch of entertainment, resembling spinning carousels from fairs and amusement parks.

Deadline Infinit, the work inspired by all these, takes the form of a spinning, one-person office—an ambiguous space between exploitation and leisure, work and play, confusion and absurdity.
Soon in an exhibition which opens on November 11 at @contemporar.galerie as part of the Cluj În rezidență program

#cccluj #clujînrezidență
@centrulculturalclujean by @alexndra_mocan

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a year ago