József Bartha (1960, Odorheiu Secuiesc) lives and works in Târgu Mureș. He is a visual artist, scenographer, curator, lecturer at the University of Art in Târgu Mureș where he teaches scenography and visual arts. Initiator and organiser of several national and international contemporary art projects. He is the founder and president of the ARTeast Foundation and of the contemporary art space B5 Studio in Tg. Mures. Studies at the Institute of Fine Arts in Cluj (1987) and at the University of Art in Budapest ( DLA, 2012). In addition to other international grants in 1996 he was an ArtsLink Fellow in the United States and in 2005 he received a grant from the Boswill Art Committee in Switzerland. Bartha József’s conceptual works include photographs, installations, video installations and art interventions. He has had solo exhibitions in Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the USA. He has participated in many group exhibitions at home and abroad working with curators such as Liviana Dan, Călin Dan, Irina Cios, Judit Angel, Harald Seemann, Jan Kafka, Omar Mirza and Oliver Kielmayer.

Since 1992 he has created more than 90 stage designs for theatres in Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia. In addition to several national and international stage design awards, he has been nominated four times for the UNITER award for best stage design, which he won in 2014 for the stage design of Hamlet directed by László Bocsárdi at the Tamási Áron Theatre in Sfântu Gheorghe.