This is my third post about an unwanted statue. This time things are even more problematic then  before. The latest controversial statue is that of the poet/politician Adrian Paunescu known especially for his praising of Nicolae Ceausescu and the socialist republic; also leader of the Cenaclul Flacara, he was a politician after 1990 as a representative of the socialist party (PSM) and then of the social-democrat party (PDSR/PSD). His most important role after 1990 was as head of the Commission for Culture of the Senate. Thus, his influence in both communist and post-communist culture was quite important.

As his legacy is quite divisive in post-communist Romania why did one of the mayors of Bucharest decide to inaugurate just before local elections his bust? My question being rhetorical I think Paunescu represents for some nostalgic Romanians one of the greatest poets of the XXc, his verses are known by heart and can be heard in very diverse TV shows when the topic discussed concerns “our nation’s great destiny” (this is one of the typical communist phrases of the protochronist period). For others, he represents all the evil the Ceausescu regime created: false values and false idols, accentuated nationalism and arrivisme. Yet, in our city, the first win; every time. Their perspective is officialized by local authorities such as the current mayor Necolai Ontanu. And this is what counts and should concern us all.

The photo belongs to Vlad Petri.

The most recent monument inaugurated in Bucharest belongs to the sculptor Vasile Gorduz and shows the Roman emperor Traian naked and holding the symbol of the Roman and Dacian fusion (the wolf/snake). This depiction, placed on the steps of the Museum of National History has been greeted by all sorts of jokes and derision as authorities themselves fight each other (the current mayor Oprescu and the director of the museum Oberlander Tarnoveanu). I raised this issue before: why not a more interactive form of decision concerning public monuments? This time the cost of the project is not so enormous as for previous recent monuments but still the issue remains. Why inaugurate (as the mayor Oprescu announced) an entire series of monuments dedicated to the fusion of Romans and Dacians (oh so dear to the protochronism of the 1970s-1980s)? Why “tradition” and our “glorious” history are the only things politicians have in mind when public art is concerned? Contemporary art still seems rather an extraterrestrial form of art for Romanian public authorities.

 The statue has already been ridiculed in social media as the picture shown below testifies

by Julien Britnic (Facebook)

If we take a look at the case of Bucharest we discover that the Bucharest Mayor has a “Scientific Council of the Administration of Monuments” (?!) that decides what personality should be represented. My puzzlement comes after two controversial decisions to (re)build in Bucharest the statue of King Carol (which cost was of 3 million Euro) on its former pre-communist site (realized by sculptor Florin Codre) and to place in front of the Bucharest National Theater (TNB) a equally costly project (worth 800.000 Euros) called “Caragialiana” by Ioan Bolborea and inspired by Romanian playwright I.L. Caragiale. Both projects were questioned by contemporary artists as part of their public interventions. See more about it on their website.

I have edited a special issue of the journal Studia Politica. Romanian Journal of Political Science with the title Art and politics in (post)communism.

I stumbled upon a beautiful book that evokes what I like to call minimal histories, the lost details, the personal memories. Its name is Petite histoire and the project belongs to the Galeria Posibila in Bucharest. The volume reassembles amateur photos taken by anonymous authors but it evokes so many worlds in its pages and holds a distinct poetic feeling.

I love this kind of lost, not so important, even marginal topic. The images are all black and white and seem to be taken at the beginning of the 20th century in Romania.

Ion Grigorescu, Posthumous dialogue with Ceausescu (2007)

Two very different types of artistic expressions that I have seen in Romania recently have provoked my reaction to write this post. The first one is part of a broader and very interesting artistic project “Project 1990” curated by the visual artist Ioana Ciocan. The project has started by imagining different types of artistic interventions which are presented on the now empty pedestal of the former Lenin statue in Bucharest as a signal of the communist heritage and/or postcommunist problems. The latest intervention is called “the Romanian dream” (by artists Matei Arnăutu, Andrei Ciubotaru, Florin Brătescu & Iosif Oprescu) and sought to materialize, by creating an object that represents the Romanian dream, the conclusions of a discussion launched on an open forum available at: www.visulromanesc.ro. The result was the creation of a suitcase with all sorts of objects emerging from it. The idea behind this being, as I read it, that Romanians all want to leave their country.
The second example comes from popular culture and it is the latest song released by a Romanian band, Vunk. The song is called “I want a country as outside (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqFHJAeyLv0). One must know that Romanians continue to refer to other countries as “outside” as a direct reminiscence of the communist period when this had a significance, as Romanians were not allowed to travel freely. The title of this song, as well as the conclusion of the artistic project quoted above are symptoms of what seems to have become a Romanian obsession at least as it translates in public discourse and mass-media discourse. There seems to be an omnipresent double question: when are you leaving the country? why aren’t you? This seems to me to be an attitude that cannot produce any positive results on the needed reform, not only of the state and its institutions, but of the positioning of citizens in relation to the latter as well as to each other. Always looking to other spaces, political cultures and national experiences not as possible solutions providers but as escape-places is not a plausible solution.

Guernica (1971)