Andrei Pleșu: Brâncuși at 150 years

Last week, the Romanian Academy hosted a conference about Constantin Brâncuși, organized by Radu Varia. Below, I reiterate my contribution to the event.

Romanians who stand out through their performance abroad need time to be recognized at the same level in the Romanian market. It is a paradoxical habit of native "patriotism," explainable either by ideological frowns, or by institutional negligence, or by disinformation, or by the officialization of ignorance. Over time, Eugen Ionescu, Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Henri Coandă, Ioan Petru Culianu, and others have experienced it... A specific case is also Constantin Brâncuși. Famous all over the world, he was downgraded in Romania in the 1950s as "decadent," and solutions were sought for the "camouflage" of the monumental ensemble at Târgu Jiu. (An art critic of the time proposed, for example, the rehabilitation of the Column of the Infinite by placing a bust of Stalin at the top. The proposal was canceled by a more intelligent "ideologist": the column is too tall, which would make the portrait of the great ideologist unrecognizable...) In this context, serving, professionally, the cult of the great Brâncuși is a form of intellectual heroism, which Radu Varia has embodied for years. Inevitably, this important historian and art critic has been affected by the obtuseness and malice of many compatriots. For years, he has been sought and attributed impure motivations, so that his effort remains ignored or marginalized. On the world map, Radu Varia has done more for Brâncuși than the multitude of "politically correct" compatriots from small countries.

Doctor at Sorbonne, honorary member of the Royal Academy of Scotland, author of the most substantial monograph on Brâncuși, published in New York, Paris, and Tokyo, active in the global elite of art commentators, involved in organizing countless exhibition events, supporter of another Romanian artist, Horia Damian ("the other hero of Romania, alongside Brâncuși," according to Salvador Dalí, the great Spaniard to whom Radu Varia was also close), invited as an assistant at the University of Rome by Giulio Carlo Argan, but "relativized" in his native country, which makes me congratulate the Romanian Academy even more intensely for today's event, a well-deserved compensation and crowning of a rich and generous life. I have only one regret: the wonderful and celebrated wife of Radu Varia, the great musician Mariana Nicolesco, participates in this meeting from too far away: from the blessed heaven where she settled four years ago. And in her name, I wish Radu Varia colorful creativity, good mood, health, and well-deserved appreciation.

https://www.dilema.ro/situatiunea/brancusi-la-150-de-ani