Ileana Pascalau

Ileana Pascalau (b.1985 in Caransebeș, Romania) is a visual artist and art historian based in Berlin. She studied Fine Arts and Art History at the National University of Arts in Bucharest and received her Master’s degree from the Berlin University of Arts (2015). Between 2010 – 2012 she was a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Bucharest. Parallel to her artistic practice, Ileana Pascalau is pursuing a PhD in visual studies and works as a researcher in 18th and 19th century art at the Akademie der Künste Berlin.

Through several grants (Reed Foundation Grant, DAAD grants, the Schleswig-Holstein scholarship) and art residency programs, Ileana welded artistic practice and theoretical research in a joint process for exploring the history of the body. She examines the role of artists and doctors in the cultural transition from the one-sex anatomical model to the two-sex model, the impact of the „discovery“ of womens’ sexuality as well as non-binary narratives in the Early Modern Age. Her latest sculptures and installations follow collective fears in their coercive expression but also individual biographies capable of breaching them, thus shaping the history of our present bodies.