The Diplomat in Spain

The gallery of the Instituto Cultural Rumano in Madrid is hosting the photographic exhibition El Camino, by Calin Piescu, until 3 June. The exhibition includes 36 photographs and admission is free.

The exhibition is organised by the Institute under the auspices of the Romanian Embassy, with the support of Uniunea Artiștilor Plastici filiala Timișoara, and is curated by Ruxandra Dreptu, art critic and historian, graduate of the National University of Arts, Faculty of History and Theory of Art, PhD in visual arts, expert in Romanian modern art certified by the Ministry of Culture, member of the Union of Visual Artists. Ruxandra Dreptu is the president of the Section of Art Criticism and Art History at the UAP.

This exhibition, which documents the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, is aimed both at a knowledgeable and experienced public and at those who wish to visualise the famous route from the Middle Ages, in a unique and personal interpretation. For a time, Călin Piescu left everyday worries behind to embark on an adventure whose end was to be a surprise, a change, the resolution of problems, or simply a change of pace, a novelty.

Călin Piescu is a multimedia artist, a member of the Timișoara branch of the Union of Plastic Artists, with a surprising existential journey. He graduated from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Timișoara and has since worked as an engineer in Vienna. Towards the middle of his life he turned towards art and theology, so he completed a master’s degree in photography at the University of West Timișoara and another at the Roman Catholic Faculty of Theology in Bucharest. These three skills merge harmoniously, contributing, through discipline, rigor, imagination, mystery and faith, to define him as an artist who captures reality in the theatrical scene, portraiture and landscape.

Among his solo and group exhibitions, the 2006 exhibition Seară de seară la teatru (Night after Night in the Theatre) at the National Museum of Romanian Literature in Bucharest, where he returns in 2023 with photographs taken during two pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in 2007 and 2022, The Way, and the exhibitions in Timișoara: an exhibition of portraits of personalities, Călător între Viena și Timișoara (Traveller between Vienna and Timișoara), at the House of Culture of the city of Timișoara in 2021, and another of Viennese cityscapes, Vienna. O nouă zi (Vienna: A New Day), at the PARK Gallery.