Overtime. Running on Empty
12.11.2026 - 06.03.2027 /SAC @ MALMAISON
Thursday, November 12th, starting 6 PM, we are going „Overtime” at /SAC @ Malmaison: the exhibition „Overtime. Running on Empty” is opening, the first part of the international group project „Overtime”, curated by Alex Radu.
Artists: Justin Baroncea & Andrei Angelescu, Eva Beresin, Monica Bonvicini, Nicolae Comănescu, Marcin Dudek, Dumitru Gorzo, Jojo Gronostay, Xenia Hausner, Anne Imhof, Anri Sala, Mircea Suciu, Ecaterina Vrana, Kay Walkowiak
Design team: Justin Baroncea, Ioana Naniș, Alexandra Müller, Larisa State, Teodora Olteanu, Horia Lungescu
/SAC team: Iulian Cristea, Lidia Dobrea, Anne-Marie Lolea, Natalia Marin
Production assistance: Răzvan Țurcanu, Alex Rîță, Răzvan Ene, Cristian Matei, Ygreq Interactive
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The final chapter of the "Rhythmic Stress" curatorial program transports us into / non-exhaustively explores the paradoxical temporalities of overtime. What happens when sustained effort – physical, mental, emotional – seems to have reached and stretched its limit? When you have given everything, down to your last breath, tense within the rhythm's pressure, waiting for the final whistle, the moment of respite, rest, or reward, but instead, you are forced to continue, to maintain the same intensity and fast pace, even though your resources have been structurally exhausted?
"Overtime" drills into this anatomy of added time and the fragility of the end, with all the vulnerabilities it contains. It is a meditation on the micro- and macro-(co-)temporalities in which we (continue to) exist: from the intimate overtimes in the dynamics of a couple or a dyad, born out of love, out of any crazy love's overtimes, out of any kind of struggles, out of the daily exhaustion of individual or collaborative efforts and the goals/deadlines dictated by competitiveness, capitalism, or techno-feudalism, to systemic macro-overtimes.
On one hand, we invoke/interrogate the aesthetics and dynamics of contemporary exhaustion, of the performing body, of exhausting/visceral vulnerabilities in a nihilistic or tragicomic overtime, where laughter-and-tears, the grotesque, or excess become final songs of release. On the other hand, we look at the dynamics of the political body and resistance to violence, in an acute space where overtime is no longer a choice, but a pure condition of survival in the face of oppression, marginalization, or alienation.
It is also the historical and systemic overtime of entire communities or populations, marked by the overwhelming effort of living under the pressure of discriminatory violence and historical/transgenerational trauma, oxymoronically alternating with moments of profound beauty, catharsis, and cultural resilience. At the same time, continuing and altering a zoom-out, we talk about the gruelling overtimes of modernity, the residual exploitation of planetary resources in the Anthropocene, and a saturated present that refuses to set in order to allow the future to be re-imagined.
„Overtime. Running on Empty” is the first of the three OVERTIME exhibitions to be presented at /SAC @ MALMAISON, /SAC @ BERTHELOT and /SAC @ MINCU GALLERY.
10.11.2026 - 06.03.2027 /SAC @ Malmaison
Overtime. Running on Empty
05.12.2026 - 06.03.2027 /SAC @ Berthelot
Overtime. Uneven Playing Field
14.01.2027 - 06.03.2027 /SAC @ Mincu Gallery
Rhythmic Stress in Overtime: Shifting Gears
„Overtime. Running on Empty” can be visited at /SAC @ MALMAISON in the time period 10.11.2026 - 06.03.2027 from Thursday to Saturday, 4 PM to 8 PM. We would like to thank Goethe-Institut, the Polish Institute, the Italian Cultural Institute, the French Institute, and the Austrian Cultural Forum for their support.
The exhibition is part of the cultural project „Rhythmic Stress/Tensiuni în Ritm”, co-financed by Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The project does not necessarily represent the official position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN shall not be held liable for the project’s content or any use to which the project outcome might be put. These are the sole responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.