Original Apostu

The George Apostu display, opened at the Bucharest City Museum, was disappointing due to its organisation and to critical evaluation but it had fertile consequences. People got to thinking how can a complete and accurate George Apostu display be achieved.

Steps have been taken in that direction and some photographs (a few thousands) were gathered along with some critics' texts, notes, and correspondence. They were put together by Mihai Oroveanu and are now at the National Office for Documentation and Art Display. I had access to this documentary treasure and the least probe into it can shake all prejudice related to Apostu's work. He was a big spender.

He was not organised. He worked with the indifference of nature. He never signed his work, never dated them and almost never tried to find out where they wound up. He gave them away without a name. Nobody ordered him a monument - he simply planted them in camps here and abroad. I discovered many sculptures, unknown to the public that were out of theme.

Many were carved in his last years, in France. The photographs show that the artist tried to document at least his final years. They are great pieces, however atypical. One would never recognise him in these works but there is a certain familiarity to them. In such works, Apostu renounced all sense, all humanity.

The pieces are not representations, don't relate to anything. They are unleashed, volumes of great consistence, planes and angles, like an allusion to the concrete universe of sculpture. George Apostu, the well known, remains to be discovered.