The Romanian Minister of Culture talks art and money

Citation

Miller, S. (2003), "The Romanian Minister of Culture talks art and money", European Business Review, Vol. 15 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2003.05415eab.002

The Romanian Minister of Culture talks art and money

Sanda MillerSanda Miller is an Art Historian and Critic, author of many articles in learned journals and the book Constantin Brancusi: A Survey of His Work.

Keywords: Democracy, Arts, Money, Romania, Interviews

AbstractSanda Miller returns to her native Romania to interview the Minister of Culture, Razvan Teodorescu. Together, they explore the relationship between artistic freedom and the restoration of democracy and conversely between dictatorship and cultural brutalism. Dr Miller's interview is interspersed with a detailed commentary on the relationship between tradition and modernity in Romania's new democracy, and on the artistic response to recent traumas and present challenges.

The recently published official definition, as well as aims and objectives of Romania's Ministry of Culture and Denominations, are summed up as follows: "the organ of the central public administration specialised in elaborating and ensuring the application of policies and strategies in the domain of culture, art, religious affairs and cinematography" (MPI, 2003, p. 42).

It is therefore defined as a new ministry for the new millennium whose projected strategies for the next decade incorporate not only: "institutional reform, re-organization and restructuring processes" at present "in an advanced stage" (MPI, 2003, p. 43) but also extensive legislative changes, including important political decisions such as decentralization.

Recently I interviewed the Minister of Culture, Razvan Teodorescu who summed up his brief as: "striving to leave a visible mark of governing, not so much in my capacity as an academic and writer but as a politician"[1] for he is that rare animal: a scholar, writer and politician, all three rolled into one. A distinguished medieval historian of international reputation who lectured and published extensively, Razvan Teodorescu received a PhD in history from the University of Bucharest in 1972. His interest in things political emerged in the wake of the momentous changes which took place in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, followed shortly in Romania by the televised execution in December of 1989 of the dreaded Ceausescu couple, Nicolae and Elena. Teodorescu's first taste of political life started at that point with the directorship of Romanian Television which marked the most important volte-face in his career: the shift from academe to political life. Its culmination materialised in December 2000 – when Ion Iliescu's government was re-elected to power – and Razvan Teodorescu became Minister of Culture.

When I asked him to enumerate a few of the major projects he is at present involved with, I was bombarded with an abundance of examples ranging from architecture, restoration/conservation, visual arts, theatre, opera and cinematography.

Among the most important is without doubt the imminent inauguration "hopefully in December of this year" of the first Romanian National Museum of Contemporary Arts. This project, deemed to be among the most difficult, was entrusted to the maverick art historian, critic and accomplished photographer Mihai Oroveanu. A true polymath, Oroveanu is a passionate collector of historical photographs (he reckons his personal collection in the region of five million including original glass negatives) as well as a skilled hunter and cook, a talented photographer and general bon viveur: a veritable Romanian Falstaff. His family roots are in the landed gentry from Oltenia, and his grandfather was a close friend of the most famous son of that picturesque region, the sculptor Constantin Brancusi. He made Oroveanu's grandfather a present of a plaster version of the portrait bust of the painter Nicolae Darascu, still owned by the family. Oroveanu is also a brilliant administrator whose diplomatic skills and sheer will power will enable him to complete the Machiavellian task he was entrusted with, which at present is so hotly debated as to verge on a public scandal. The reasons are, as Razvan Teodorescu explained, multiple:

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  Romania is one of the few countries which does not have a space dedicated to contemporary art and without exaggeration we have thousands of works by artists of several generations and thank God, the last ones produced remarkable stuff. These works did not have a public space where they could either be seen or permutated. Although we have the newly restored National Museum of Art of Romania (housed in the former Royal Palace) with three excellent galleries, chronologically displays stop in 1970.

A decision had to be made urgently to address this serious lacuna by way of founding a museum of contemporary art.

The decision once taken, it was necessary either to find an existing location, or to construct a new building to house the museum. The reason for the ongoing bickering at present is directly related to the chosen location for it was decided that the future Museum of Contemporary Art is to be housed in Ceausescu's former "Casa Poporului" (The House of the People) within which a section adjacent to the Romanian Parliament also housed there, will be appropriately restructured and refurbished to become the new museum. Today internationally famous (infamous would be a more appropriate word), "The House of the People" continues to be a strange presence in Bucharest both spatially and emotionally, refusing to integrate in the fabric of the everyday. The monumental building once referred to by the distinguished architect Mariana Celac as "stile Abu-Dhabi" is equally irreverently described by Razvan Teodorescu as: "that strange building I usually refer to as being built in the Graeco-Korean style … . Nevertheless the Romanians are proud of their 'Casa Poporului' as being second only to the Pentagon regarding dimensions".

Nicolae Ceausescu was not interested in the arts with one exception: architecture. Like all megalomaniacs (Nero, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin), he wanted to rebuild (literally and metaphorically) his country and for that he needed his servile architects who were prepared to demolish and destroy sections of the Romanian historical heritage (whereby Bucharest suffered most), in order to make room for Ceausescu's monuments. The "House of the People", which was to become the crowning glory of his "life and times", was rather curiously entrusted to an unknown young woman, Anca Petrescu. Large chunks of historical Bucharest had to be flattened out in order to make space for Ceausescu's folly, unfortunately with tragic consequences. A section of Bucharest was turned into a building site, replete with cranes and the desolate remains of old streets, which were systematically and ruthlessly destroyed as the construction progressed. By December 1989 however "Casa Poporului" was still only an outer shell; construction inside had barely started and the Ceausescu couple did not live to see the Herculean task completed. After their execution, Anca Petrescu rendered herself unavailable for interviews both with the Romanian and foreign press and rumours were rife that she "had defected", but nobody knew her whereabouts. The building has remained unfinished since which is just as well because the huge outer shell is now being partitioned in sections, each to be finished to specification in order to fulfil its future function: house of parliament, museum, etc.

Meanwhile, Anca Petrescu has conveniently re-emerged to meddle in architectural decisions and top of her list is to contest Oroveanu's plan to remove sections of the heavily ornamented facade in favour of a Modernist streamlined effect he rightly considers appropriate for a future museum of contemporary art of international standing. At this moment the battle between them can only be described approximating an escalating war.

Scandals, in-fighting and venomous press notwithstanding, the spectacular amount of space which will be made available for displays and exhibitions as well as the historical peculiarity of the location will make the future museum an attractive proposition to engage with for Western Europe and the USA (the newly re-opened Saatchi Gallery in London springs to mind). In order to make it financially viable the museum is conceived –’like all the analogous institutions in the West – as a multi-purpose institution which will include a sculpture park, a theatre for contemporary dance, film screenings, in other words an "ongoing laboratory" open to new ideas and experiments:

We intend to open the museum in December of this year, of course initially only with a few rooms. Recently the French Minister of Culture who was my guest was invited to visit the site and he was enthusiastic to see such huge spaces we shall make available for exhibitions and displays.

Other cultural projects in the pipeline which were also listed by Razvan Teodorescu included: a museum of the Romanian Icon to which 4,000m2 of space were allocated also within the shell of "Casa Poporului"; a National Museum of the History of Romania; a museum of cartography; as well as the conservation and restoration of other buildings and historical monuments. An important project close to Razvan Teodeorescu's heart is the restoration of the Museum of the Collections at present housed in a magnificent nineteenth century hôtel particulier in the centre of Bucharest. In its even older basement, dating from the eighteenth century, a very special display is envisaged, meant to function as a kind of memento, a kind of membra disiecta of what was left from the church belonging to the famous Cotroceni monastery demolished by Nicolae Ceausescu.

This demolition was an act of barbarism of unprecedented proportions against one of the finest painted churches in Romania. Built during the reign of Serban Cantacuzino (1679-1688), construction of the monastery and church had started immediately when he became king. The inner walls of the church were decorated with murals by the famous icon painter (zugrav) Parvu Mutu (the Dumb) and completed in 1682. Within the same complex a new Royal Palace was also built. The complex underwent a series of functional changes during Ceausescu's regime. Thus in 1968 the church was desacralized and became the Museum of Religious Art. In 1984 Ceausescu decided to do away with it altogether and ordered its demolition. About 80m2 of the mural were salvaged and transferred to the deposits of the National Museum. The Cotroceni palace also underwent a major programme of reconstruction and expansion between 1976-1985 becoming presidential residence, a function it continues to fulfil today (Olteanu, 2002).

When the decision to demolish the church was taken, Razvan Teodorescu, alongside many other "dissidents", objected publicly and as a consequence lost his job. That is one of the reasons why this particular project is so close to his heart, as he explained: "Now I can do something about this because my career has been closely interwoven with its history; I lost my academic job as a lecturer when I protested for this church."

A project he is equally keen to implement and for which he has the support of the United Nations is "Beautiful Romania", which consists of: "… enhancing ten historical centres through a programme of restoration of the buildings to be undertaken by young people who were formerly institutionalised in children's homes". Thus a social dimension added to the practical and aesthetic dimensions involved in the process of restoration: "… If you want, the two major aggressions: the cultural aggression and the aggression towards the child will be brought together in this project."

For the forthcoming international music festival "Georges Enesco" which will start in September of this year, restoration of the Romanian Athenaeum will be completed. The Athenaeum palace was built between 1886-1888 by the French architect Albert Galleron on the old foundations of a circus, hence its circular shape, its neoclassical style regarded as: "… a faithful expression of the French spirit which since Charles Garnier has dominated European architecture of the second half of the nineteenth century" (Ionescu, 1982). Used as the capital's major concert venue it will be restored in time to welcome the international musicians who will gather in Bucharest for the festival.

The moot question of money had to be raised: how generous is Ion Iliescu's government towards culture, heritage and the arts? One of its staunchest supporters in the present government is the Prime Minister, Adrian Nastase, himself a passionate collector of art. Nonetheless, the funding situation was summed up by Razvan Teodorescu in one uncompromising word: catastrophic. His budget is about 2,400 million lei (the Romanian currency is the leu/lei and the current rate of exchange is approximately £1€=€50,000 lei), the equivalent of which has been calculated for me to be approximately $73 million. However, the situation is not all doom and gloom, given that Romania has access to external credit.

Thus the "World Monuments Fund" agreed to support an important project: the restoration of Constantin Brancusi's famous Column of the Infinite in Tirgu Jiu. This project too had its fair share of scandals which reverberated among Brancusi scholars the world over, this country being no exception, with an extensive article written by Shanes (2002) and published in ArtWatch File in Autumn/Winter 2002 and entitled: "A restoration without end? Brancusi's 'Column' in Targu-Jiu, Romania". The chief objections are not only related to the physical process of restoration which consisted in the partial disassembling of the column, but the ethical implications to do with subsequent accusations that what we now have is no longer a "Brancusi original", as well as questions about the quality of workmanship. In 1996, the World Monuments Fund agreed to put the monument on its list of l00 most endangered sites and in 1998 it agreed to lend the Romanian government $1.5 million for restoration work. The author comments that: "The government that has been in power since December 2000, led by President Iliescu, seems to be very aware of the deficiencies of the recent, hurried and politically-sullied restoration, so perhaps something will be done to remedy these shortcomings" (Shanes, 2002).

The restoration of the Romanian Athenaeum was given e5 million and for the "Beautiful Romania" project, Razvan Teodorescu is trying to obtain $400,000 from the United Nations – a small sum by most standards – he hastened to add to which he hopes to add $6 million from the European Commission.

Razvan Teodorrescu budgets carefully as he confessed with some degree of pride, much like a thrifty housewife, and from the achievements hitherto undertaken and successfully accomplished, he appears to manage well within his financial limits: "I am responsible for allocating funds and everybody has to come to me with their various requests; don't forget also that other events such as the Book Fair, the cinema, theatre, opera, libraries, foreign presences in this country, are also funded by us." Besides, he added with a wry smile, "we also fund the construction of churches, synagogues and mosques. Romania is the only country in Europe where you can find all faiths; a Europe in miniature." A slight exaggeration perhaps, but the pride with which he made this statement can easily be explained in context. In a country where all religions were suppressed with excessive violence during the Ceausescus' regime to the extent that a veritable programme of the eradication of religious monuments – sadly including some of Romania's finest historical churches –’as well as institutions was deemed necessary, Razvan Teodorescu is pointing out in his understated way to important changes. What we are now witnessing is not only a Christian renaissance but other faiths are positively encouraged to flourish once again in Romania, where every attempt is being made at government level to align it to the multicultural melting pot which is now Europe.

By way of conclusion, it would perhaps be instructive to chart the progress Romania has made since December 1989 when it freed itself from Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship which was without doubt one of the most oppressive in modern history.

For that purpose, I am able to compare the information gleaned from the recent interview with the current Minister of Culture of Romania, Razvan Teodorescu with another interview I was privileged to be given in March 1990 by the first Romanian Minister of Culture after the Ceausescu regime, Andrei Plesu (The Times, 1990). The interview, published in The Times (London) in March of that year was entitled: "Fighting the good fight in Romania" and it summed up the very different kinds of struggle Andrei Plesu had to face 13 years ago. Like Razvan Teodorescu, Andrei Plesu is an accomplished art historian and critic, currently professor of philosophy at the University of Bucharest. He too once lost his job defending the poet Mircea Dinescu for giving an interview in the French newspaper Liberation in which he openly criticized the Ceausescu regime.

As a consequence of this action, Plesu was exiled to a village in Northern Moldavia where he lived until the revolution in the winter of 1989 when he was elected to become Minister of Culture in the first newly elected government of the post-Ceausescu era, led by Ion Iliescu, re-elected in December of 2000 as president of Romania. An unexpected difficulty Plesu was forced to deal with was to change old structures, mentalities and ways of doing business. These, he felt, were a major obstacle in his attempts to implant new structures and corresponding ideologies in keeping with a government which described itself as democratic. The most pressing issue then as now was finance, not surprisingly a lot worse in Andrei Plesu's time than at present. Yet at this point it would be instructive to reflect that however slow progress appears to be, at times moving with the speed of the tortoise rather than Achilles, it is nevertheless, like the tortoise, a steady progress.

Thus under the Ceausescu regime only the equivalent of about £17 million were relegated to culture, from which about two-thirds were designated for the despised festival "Cintarea Romaniei" (The song of Romania). Plesu described it to me as: "an annual folly of monumental proportions consisting of amateur artistic manifestations in praise of the Communist Party and its two leaders" (Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu).

Plesu's first task as Minister of Culture was to double his budget and he successfully accomplished his mission: in 1990 he had available a budget which was the equivalent of £34 million (a level not equalled since 1944), nonetheless a derisory sum. His real success however came from a different direction: in less than three months, between the time he was nominated Minister of Culture in December 1989 and March 1990, when our interview for The Times took place, Plesu has succeeded in invigorating the cultural scene, but much more importantly he was able to instil in a severely demoralized and embittered public an incipient element of optimism and faith in the possibility of a luminous cultural future for Romania.

Finally, I would like to quote a paragraph from The Times regarding some of the immediate changes implemented by the then Minister of Culture, Andrei Plesu during the momentous months after the fall of the Ceausescu regime:

… The new director of the National Museum is the distinguished art historian Theodor Enescu and a Byzantine scholar, Professor Razvan Teodorescu is the new president of Romanian Television which will in future be independent.

Now, 13 years on, the Byzantine scholar and director of Romanian Television is at present the Minister of Culture and still "fighting the good fight in Romania" begun by Andrei Plesu and all the dedicated intellectuals who have inaugurated a genuine cultural revolution, which although fraught with problems and lack of money is at least democratic and free.

Note1. Interview with the Romanian Minister of Culture, Dr Razvan Teodorescu, Bucharest 15 May 2003.

ReferencesIonescu, G. (1982), Architectura pe teritoriul Romaniei de – a lungul veacurilor, Editura Academiei, pp. 540-1.MPI (203), "The Ministry of Culture and Denominations", Info. Ro: Romanian Government New Report, No.12, March, The Ministry of Public Information, Bucharest, p. 42.Olteanu, R. (2002), Bucuresti in date si intimplari, Colectia cartilor de referinta, Editura Paideia, Bucuresti, p.45.Shanes, E. (2002), "A restoration without end? Brancusi's 'column' in Targu-Jiu, Romania", ArtWatch File, (Newsletter), Autumn/Winter, p.17.(The) Times (1990), "Fighting the good fight", (interview with the Romanian Minister of Culture, Andrei Plesu), The Times, 17 March, p.43.