Catinca Tabacaru

Background

About Catinca Tabacaru

As the Owner and Director of TINCA ART INC (dba Catinca Tabacaru Gallery), Catinca’s exhibits are as much a reflection of her character and history as they are a commentary on the present global moment. Catinca aims to affect the world and her shows seek to transcend the viewer past the person they came in as. Each exhibit embodies multiple layers and reveals itself through consideration and dialogue. Even the gallery space will often evolve throughout the duration of a show. Catinca’s practice indicates that just as in life, little should remain as it first appeared upon entrance. Born in Romania and immigrated to Canada at age nine, Catinca Tabacaru spent her early years studying photography and art history. She earned her bachelor degree from the University of California, Berkeley (2003) and her juris doctorate and masters in international law from Duke Law (2007). Catinca spent her graduate school years working for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Office of the Chief Defense Counsel for the Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She calls upon this human rights background to shape the conceptual frameworks of her shows, which have included explorations of gender, war, imprisonment and civil rights. After two years working as a litigation attorney in New York City, and in parallel with founding Tinca Art, Catinca started Women’s Voices Now, a provocative organization aimed at giving voice to women living in Muslim-majority countries through the medium of film (2010). She curated a collection of 99 short-films from 40 countries which was made freely available on the web and, at its peak, was watched in 176 countries. She passed on Women’s Voices Now to its new leadership (2012) to focus solely on her work as an art dealer and in May 2014 opened her first brick & mortar space on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.