Works worth a combined 12 ml euros showcased at this year's Art Safari event

Paintings by Gheorghe Petrascu and Sabin Balasa, as well as a textile installation by Israeli artist Gili Avissar are the highlights of the seventh Bucharest Art Pavilion - Art Safari 2020, running as of today until September 20 and having exhibits worth a combined 12 million euros on display.

In a first, this year the event has two venues: Victoria Tower, in downtown Bucharest, where dedicated pavilions are set up, and mall AFI Cotroceni, where visitors have free access.

The exhibition area in the center of Bucharest covers 11,000 square meters, with each floor organized according to a distinct concept, Art Safari director Ioana Ciocan told a press conference on Thursday. There is a space dedicated to children on the ground floor, where drawings by kids will be on display.

Gheorghe Petrascu's works are showcased on the first floor, the second floor is dedicated to Sabin Balasa, and the upper two floors are dedicated to the Bucharest School, presenting a kaleidoscope of the artists who trained at the Bucharest National University of Arts after 1990, but also some of their professors and mentors of that period (Corneliu Baba, Ioana Batranu, Horia Bernea, Geta Bratescu, Alexandru Chira, Ion Grigorescu, Henry Mavrodin, Florin Mitroi, Teodor Moraru, Vladimir Setran, Aurel Vlad etc.).

There is also a section dedicated to the all-female activist art group Guerrilla Girls, dubbed "The Art of Behaving Badly".

The atrium accommodates a large textile installation by Israel's Gili Avissar, as Israel is the guest country at the event this year.

The roughly 800 works on display are worth 12 million euros and about 40 institutions have contributed to bringing them into the public eye. For instance, Romania's Chamber of Deputies borrowed the event eight works of art signed by Sabin Balasa.

Tickets and subscription season tickets can be purchased on tickets.artsafari.ro.

Art Safari also offers visit nights on Fridays and Saturdays to small groups who will enjoy guided tours, art performance and live music, the organizers said, assuring also that strict safety measures are set in place: the visitors will have their temperature checked at the entrance, mask-wearing is mandatory, there are several hand-sanitising points along the viewing circuit, and the visiting route is one-way.