Culture Minister Vlad Alexandrescu officially declared open the national public fundraising campaign enabling the Romanian state to buy the famous Constantin Brancusi’s “Wisdom of the Earth” sculpture. The minister announced he had been the first to donate.
“As the culture minister and the one to sign the opening of the accounts, I have made a symbolic deposit of EUR 100,” Alexandrescu told a news conference on Monday.
He said the donations by legal entities would be deductible spending that differs from sponsorships. Freelancers will also have the donations deducted from the income tax due.
The RON and USD-denominated accounts already mentioned on the website of the Culture Ministry have been opened with BCR, BRD Societe Generale, UniCredit Bank, Banca Transilvania, CEC Bank and Raiffeisen Bank.
Alexandrescu also said that late this month the ministry would start off a national PR campaign to advertise the fundraiser.
“For the time being, we are working on selecting the companies that will work for us pro bono, without any gain. This is a national endeavor, a fundraising effort on the part of all interested donors. Anyone interested in helping us is free to do it, without any material gain, just pro bono (…),” the minister added.
He mentioned that other mechanisms are also being considered to seek donors. “We will consider, for instance, the possibility of telethons, fundraising through short messages (…) it is very important that nobody intermediating mechanisms between the citizens and these bank accounts should benefit in any way,” said Alexandrescu.
The Culture minister is optimist that the necessary funds would be raised much sooner than September 30, when it is the deadline, adding that further information about the fundraiser is posted on the cuminteniapamantului.ro website.
About a month ago, the Government announced that a national public subscription campaign would be launched for purchasing “one of the defining works by Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brancusi.
More precisely, the minister said that Romanians must also get involved and donate money to cover the EUR 6 million part of the total negotiated purchase price of EUR 11 million.