Interview by Evantia BARCA

Doina Lemny, a doctor in Art History, museographer, and researcher at Centre Pompidou in Paris, curated the most important Brâncuși exhibition organized in Romania in the last 50 years. The event, held as part of the Timișoara – European Capital of Culture program, talked about the youth and maturity of the artist who redefined the kiss and gave a universal form to infinity. It offered a sensitive discourse that preserves echoes from the Parisian student environment or memories from the period of apprenticeship with Rodin, evokes acute moments from these meetings, or resumes polemical lines from the symbolic dialogues of the times. The exhibition hided a lot of other possible itineraries, among memories of Duchamp or Mercié, gathers metaphors from the imagination of legendary loves, to then go further, to histories sculpted in pure fibers and defined by structures that carry essences. An exceptional universe awaited its audience from the end of September at the Art Museum in Timișoara. The idea of ​​this exhibition was, initially, just a dream. But, as Doina Lemny says, to succeed, you must dream with courage…

Evantia Barca: It would be appropriate to start a discussion about a Brâncuși exhibition event with another important history, namely your background, the steps you followed in Romania or schools worldwide, to mention mentors or experiences that impacted your development. How did the transition from a literary orientation to an artistic one happen?

Doina Lemny: Ah, you invite me to a long journey, which I have mentioned several times and will try to summarize: it is based on a lot of work and passion. My studies in philology provided me with a culture that is the basis of reflection and the possibility of making connections between arts and literature. Not to mention the semiology studies I followed in the last years of the Faculty of Iași under the guidance of Professor Maria Carpov. They helped me to structure my thinking, clarify my ideas, and overcome this tendency, which can still be seen today in some commentators, to present a work or an exhibition in a convoluted, dense language that kills ideas. Precise, clear expression helps you reach the substance of a work.

I cannot help but evoke my mentor, Sidney Geist (1914-2005), in my opinion, the one who understood Brâncuși the best precisely because he knew each sculpture in-depth and, as a sculptor himself, asked questions and established specific coordinates in the creation of the Romanian artist. He published the first catalog raisonné in 1968, Brancusi: A Study of the Sculpture, following lengthy investigations and even learning the Romanian language, precisely to get even closer to Brâncuși, as he told me. I had this chance to meet and talk to him whenever he came to Paris. We would sit for hours in the artist’s studio and watch, commenting on a work or two.

These conversations and this friendship have been more valuable than I don’t know how many academies. His words, still in my mind, struck a sensitive chord in me, reverberating and reverberating even now. You would say I had that chance. But anyone could have it because Sidney was a modest and approachable man. But he found in me a sounding board, which he nurtured and shaped. Only later, and with the regret of not having known him, I discovered Vasile Georgescu Paleolog, Brâncuși’s friend, the only one in our country, in my opinion, who came close to Brâncuși’s thinking and who understood him best. His writing, however, is difficult to read today because it is dense and full of Oltenian regionalisms –- picturesque, by the way! – but daunting for the amateur who would like to read it.

Then, I had this chance – also thanks to my incredible perseverance– to work at the opening of Brâncuși’s workshop in front of the Centre Pompidou. But, I repeat, several people, even Romanians, had this chance but did not know how to use it because they did not vibrate the way I vibrated in front of this work. That is why I always say that chance does not come as a gift from the sky; you create it, cling to it with passion, suffer, and work days and nights to have a few moments of satisfaction. This is why I feel invested in continuing this mission, to continue because Brâncuși’s work sends endless messages.

E.B.: The exhibition in Timișoara undoubtedly had many strands of possible readings. It could perhaps also be read as a history of Brâncuși’s muses, a theme that brings us closer to another work of yours, the book Brancusi et ses muses, released at the beginning of this year. If we were to tell the stories of these muses just by walking through the exhibition in Timișoara, which would be the most impressive of these histories? Many are especially inspired by his connection to Maria Tănase, perhaps to Marthe Lebherz…

D.L.: You have touched on my sensitive point because it is my last book about Brâncuși, which I designed a long time ago but to which I did not have enough time to devote. However, over time, I collected many documents, read many biographies and autobiographies – where they exist – and reread with pencil in hand all Brâncuși’s correspondence with women: artists, collectors, and writers. This allowed me to reveal new information about the artist with women, inspiring muses, some whom he photographed, and others he noticed for a certain movement, a profile, or an attitude.

Brâncuși was considered a man who liked women: it depends on how this is interpreted. Even in French, the expression “un homme à femmes” is challenging to interpret: a man obsessed with sex, looking for adventures, or a man who appreciates the presence of women, whom he incites to conversations, to whom he gallantly offers a bouquet of flowers, which he respects and in which he saw a source of inspiration, a source of vitality. I wanted to show this second side in the case of Brâncuși, who did not lack courtesans but whom he respected and admired. This aspect is an integral part of his life as an artist; one cannot separate, at least for him, the life of a man from the life of a creator.

Some of these muses were his lifelong friends, such as Baroness Renée-Irana Frachon, the inspiration for his masterpiece The Sleeping Muse. Others, like Marthe Lebherz, whom you quote, accompanied him and aroused in him feelings of love but did not lead to the creation of a work. And, because you mentioned Maria Tănase: like all legends, this one about the love between Brâncuși and the singer started from a chapter in Petre Pandrea’s book (unfortunately very often republished in Romania), which tells in detail the relationship between the two artists.

But no correspondence or testimony attests to the presence of the lawyer Petre Pandrea at Brâncuși’s studio. It seems that the lawyer from Oltenia has never even met the artist, but he allowed himself to describe in detail the moments of love between the two personalities. And not only that. Everything he writes about Brâncuși is false, with distorted facts and aspects. This legend started from here and from the existence of a photograph from the Romanian Pavilion at the New York Universal Exhibition in 1939, which is in the Library of the Romanian Academy, in which Brâncuși appears, surrounded by two women, one of whom is young Maria Tanase. Pandrea talks about 1937, when Maria Tănase would have met Brâncuși in Paris. Maria Tănase was not in Paris during this period. Then, a meeting at an exhibition -– as so many still happen today at various cultural events -– does not confirm a “lightning” love story.

Another personality mentioned among Brâncuși’s loves is Princess Marie Bonaparte. From all my research and that of specialists in the princess, there is no time when these personalities would have met. Specialists in the work of Marie Bonaparte say that the princess was not aware of the existence of this artist –- they were from entirely different worlds, which did not mix. She would not have known about Brâncuși’s work, Princess X, initially titled Portrait of Marie Bonaparte. I specify these aspects to argue the purpose of my book Brancusi et ses Muses (which I would like translated into Romanian): to present the sentimental life or, in short, the life of the artist, with the intense experiences, with his entourage, aspects that are part of creation. Legends have their role but must be left in their place, not taken as fact.

E.B.: Are there other narrative threads, biographical stories, or recurring themes that could be traced in this exhibition? Can you suggest some possible itineraries?

D.L.: A broad question, even a challenge, which deserves a chapter in a book. But let me limit myself to this exhibition. The limited space, even very limited, forced me to evoke only a few aspects of these itineraries. For example, the evocation of his schooling in Bucharest is amply evoked and is a novel aspect of the exhibition. In the catalog, the text of Ioana Vlasiu, a great specialist in 20th-century art, clarifies this formative period. An exhibition cannot be conceived without mentioning Brâncuși’s relationship with Rodin, from whom he broke after four months in his studio but whom he never disowned. He could not even have because, in his early creation, one can feel his influence, even if Brâncuși was on the verge of taking a different path………. (excerpt from the interview given by Doina Lemny to Empower Artists Magazine)

The full interview can be read in the first print issue of Empower Artist, which is available here.

Credit photo: @ Hervé Véronèse