At the end of the Constantin Brâncuși exhibition and after a year of great success, the West University of Timișoara wishes to emphasize the important role that Mr. Filip Petcu, director of the National Art Museum of Timișoara and teaching staff at the Faculty of Arts and Design, played in the equation of success from UVT.

Under the pressure of time, with the support of the Timiș County Council, the director of the Timișoara museum started and completed a complex series of investments without which the Brâncusi, Victor Brauner and Paul Neagu exhibitions could not have taken place, for the simple reason that the museum did not he was prepared to receive works of such value under conditions of security. In the absence of these investments, the works that I have admired over the course of a year could not have been exhibited in Timișoara. The museum was equipped with a high-performance fire detection and alarm system, thus receiving ISU authorization; a sophisticated surveillance network with cameras was installed; modern air conditioning and microclimatic monitoring installations were placed; a world-class museum lighting system was installed; it was provided with a generator set to take over the operation of the museum in the event of a power failure. These investments and many others have allowed the museum to be raised to a technical level that no other art cultural institution in Romania is reaching at the moment.

To achieve these conditions, the dynamism and professionalism of our colleague were indispensable, against the background of an appropriate financial allocation from the CJ Timiș. We also note the fact that his team of collaborators, under-sized and extremely in demand throughout the whole year, managed to organize, simultaneously, a series of other exhibitions that diversified the cultural offer and highlighted the work of some local artists first-rate or artifacts that any museum in the world would be proud of: vestiges of Cucuteni ceramics, Baroque Reloaded projects, I-Human, Timișoara Neo-avant-garde, Romul Nutiu, Suzana Fântânariu, Parallels, project realized in partnership with Galeria Matica Srpska from Novi Sad etc.

At the same time, visitors were able to admire the interiors of the Baroque Palace in an exceptional color and scenographic ambience, completely rethought, as well as a restoration laboratory that can be visited and is visible from the outside. A plastic education space for children was set up, particularly in demand since the first day of inauguration, to mention several other investments, managed simultaneously with the impressive flow of visitors, unusual in the national cultural landscape.

For all these major successes and on behalf of UVT, I warmly congratulate director Filip Petcu and assure him of the full support of our institution.

Prof. univ. dr. Marilen Gabriel Pirtea
Rector of the West University of Timișoara