EVA FOUNDATION
Bucharest, Romania
Inaugural Exhibition: SIRENS
Curated by Ecaterina Aguiar-Lucander
founder and curatorial director
October 11, 2025
EVA Foundation houses a transnational collection of 20th and 21st Century art created by women. Situated in the heart of Bucharest within a renovated 1930s townhouse. EVA Foundation is a haven for reflection on the future, present, and past of art created by women – the first publicly accessible collection of international art in Romania. Stemming from founder and curator Ecaterina Vlad’s intellectual engagement with feminist histories, its collection surveys innovative women artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. By pairing 20th-century works with contemporary pieces, the collection connects past and present, contextualizing today’s art-making within a broader narrative of female artistic expression.
Housed in a beautifully renovated 1930s single-family home, the collection sheds traditional institutional expectations. It invites cultural dialogue that extends beyond Bucharest – bridging craft and fine art, the local and the transnational, the historical and the futuristic – anchored in a feminist lens and the Romanian spirit of resilience.“EVA”, equivalent to Eve, refers to the Biblical first woman, a frequent representation in art history that has been portrayed as a symbol of temptation and subservience. Contemporary artists and scholars, however, have reimagined her as a figure of symbolic autonomy—an emblem of agency, knowledge, and resistance that challenges patriarchal narratives and reclaims feminine subjectivity.
Highlights include paintings by Hedda Sterne, the Romanian-born artist who became a central figure in the New York School, alongside works by Judy Chicago, Howardena Pindell, and Jenny Holzer. Contemporary practices are represented by Taryn Simon, Andra Ursuța, Carrie Moyer, Gisela Colón, Jenny Holzer, Sara Flores, Tracey Emin, Mona Hatoum, Marguerite Humeau, and Huma Bhabha, among others. Iconic contributions by Yayoi Kusama, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, Alice Neel, Martha Jungwirth, Cora Cohen, Latifa Echakhch, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith further expand the dialogue between 20th and 21st century art.
Through this intergenerational assembly, the inaugural exhibition encapsulates EVA’s vision: to situate women’s art at the center of cultural and historical discourse, creating a space of resonance, reflection, and reimagination.
