Alexandru Chira (1947, Tauseni, Romania - +2011, Bucharest, Romania) was an artist and Professor at the Painting Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Bucharest National University of Arts. When his home village Tauseni suffered a yearlong drought during the 1990s Chira started to elaborate sophisticated land-and-weather improving art equipments, a series of symbolic installations of painted metal, wire and concrete for the invocation of rain and rainbows. The ensemble De-signs towards the sky for the rain and the rainbow (1994 - 2004) is located on a hill in the middle of the village, surrounded by other hills and divided into 18 sub-ensembles.

Chira’s works have been presented in the context of various exhibitions, including Stereopoems, fitzpatrick gallery, Paris, 2023, The Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon; The Sao Paolo Biennial Art Exhibition, Sao Paolo; The Visual Arts Museum, Galati; and The National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Bucharest, which presented a retrospective of the artist in 2015.

The first major publication of Chira’s work was released in December 2022, and features essays in Romanian, with translations in English, by Ionut Cioana, Diana Marincu, Alexandra Titu, Calin Dan, and Marina Ionescu.