Brancusi sculpture to be bought by public subscription

Opinions are divided in Romania over the governments call for a public subscription to purchase a work by sculptor Constantin Brancusi. Some say the state should cover the entire cost, others support the idea of a public subscription. Everybody agrees, h

Corina Cristea, 01.04.2016, 13:31

The Romanian Athenaeum, which is one of Bucharest’s most iconic venues, was built thanks to the small donations made by 500,000 inhabitants of the city in 1886. 128 years later, a similar campaign has been initiated to raise money for the purchase of Constantin Brancusi’s masterpiece “The Wisdom of the Earth”. The work could become the property of the Romanian state provided that 6 million euro is raised by the end of September. The sculpture costs 11 million euro, but the state is able to provide 5 million. The Romanian prime minister Dacian Ciolos said on television that the public subscription to purchase the Brancusi sculpture is a form of partnership between the state and society.

Dacian Ciolos: “We are launching this public subscription as a way of working together, the state and society. If we can’t raise the money in time, it means we have decided to give up. A public document will be available detailing the history of the work, including its legal situation, so as to make everything transparent and eliminate any suspicion over possible hidden interests.”

To be able to purchase the Brancusi sculpture, the Romanian state will invoke its right of pre-emption. Culture minister Vlad Alexandrescu explains in an interview on Radio Romania: “No private company will make any profit from this operation, which has to be perfectly transparent, and which comes to an end on 30th September. So people who wish to contribute to this purchase may do so by this date. Everybody can donate as much as they want and only if they want to, there is no obligation to contribute. This is not a form of taxation, but a donation, which people are free to make or not, depending on whether they believe in this initiative. The Romanian people now have the opportunity to demonstrate whether they believe this work deserves to remain in the public circuit”.

Minister Alexandrescu also said that Brancusi’s sculpture “The Wisdom of the Earth” is exceptional because it illustrates a decisive stage in the artist’s development and style and, in particular, because it is unique, unlike “The Kiss”, for example, which has six different versions.