Reading performance “Brancusi vs. the USA” by Tatiana Niculescu, at NTB

The I.L. Caragiale National Theater in Bucharest is marking Constantin Brancusi Year with an event dedicated to the great Romanian artist, 150 years after his birth. On Thursday, February 19, 2026, the public is invited to the reading performance "Brancusi contra SUA" (Brancusi vs. the USA), a play by Tatiana Niculescu, directed by Irina Banea. The event is the first in a series of reading performances organized by the Ion Sava Center for Theater Research and Creation.

The play written by Tatiana Niculescu is based on the controversial story from 1926, when Brancusi's work Pasarea in vazduh (Bird in Space) was not considered a work of art, being registered by American customs officials as an industrial object. The author, who established the biography genre in contemporary Romanian literature, reimagines the famous trial that permanently changed the status of modern art in a surrealist key, with fantasy and humor. Alongside the great artists of the time—Modigliani, Marcel Duchamp, Ezra Pound—we discover a human, lively, and intense Brancusi, beyond the abstract figure of genius, now part of the universal heritage.

The character Brancusi is played by Alexandru Potocean, and the cast includes well-known names from the National Theater: Lari Giorgescu, Florentina Tilea, Iuliana Moise, Alexandra Salceanu, Dorin Andone, Victoria Dicu, Dragos Stemate, Rodica Ionescu, Ionut Toader, Daniel Badale, and Dragos Ionescu.

The performance will take place at the Media Hall on February 19, at 6 p.m., and will be followed by a discussion with the audience, in the presence of the author. Admission is free, subject to availability.

Event organized with the support of Humanitas Publishing House.

Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu