On July 2, 2020, Digi24, together with A10 by Artmark and the National Red Cross Society of Romania organized the Postwar and Contemporary Art Auction, within the charity campaign Beauty will save the World. The purpose of this approach was to support the education programs of the Red Cross. At the auction there were presented 24 works by contemporary Romanian artists who joined the project.
Beauty will save the World is an unique project, in which the artists donated the works to be auctioned, and the total amount is donated to the Red Cross. The campaign started on June 18, at Digi24, by broadcasting every day video materials presenting the donated works and their authors, in an unprecedented journalistic approach. In this way, the public had access to another way of expressing the problems and questions they face in everyday life.
The creators of the project Beauty will save the World wanted to draw attention to the fact that “art is not only for the rich and knowledgeable”. All the objects around us – table, chair, mobile phone, car – mean art, involve aesthetic choices and mean our visual contact with others. The difficult times of the last period should teach us that kindness means efficiency and that generosity materializes through money and timely intervention. Or, art makes the connections between people stronger. The stake of the project is a financial one, for the benefit of the Red Cross, but it is also related to the social coherence that we should find”.
At the end of the Beauty will save the World Campaign, on July 2, the guests of the Evening Journal will review not only the key currents in contemporary art, but also the professionalism with which the artists involved in the project are extremely connected to the Western market and manage to express their problems.
The General Manager of the National Red Cross Society, Ioan Silviu Lefter, thanked the organizers, the artists for donating their own creations which represent a profound gesture of kindness and responsibility on their part and which proves that “beauty will save the world”.
Keeping the line of social responsibility actions carried out over time, Helinick, wanted to continue to be part with those in the front line and after supporting through a donation the Emergency Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases “Prof.Dr. C.C. Iliescu “also participated in this event, purchasing the work Don Quixote, painted by the artist Ioan Sbârciu. Through our gesture, we want to contribute to the efforts and fight of the National Red Cross Society of Romania against COVID-19.
The acquisition of the mentioned painting constituted a material aid in the amount of 7,300€. Through this donation, Helinick contributed, together with other donors, to the accumulation of an amount of approximately 50,000€.
The work is part of the Don Quixote series, a recurring theme in the creation of the artist Ioan Sbârciu. Don Quixote firmly believes in the power to re-establish society in a golden age of justice, in the fight against the windmills. But defeated in terms of practical life, Don Quixote is the absolute spiritual winner who sublimely lives his own chimeras. Magnificent and pathetic, solemn and grotesque, Don Quixote becomes immortal because immortal is the transformation of the pursuit of an ideal, anytime and anywhere.
As the author, the painter Ioan Sbârciu, says: “I chose this work because any artist must be in Don Quixote’s watch, that is, to have the desire to change the world according to his own laws. Everyone’s desire is to change for the better, to return to what was best. We must have the free spirit, not be afraid, beware of it, but overcome the virus or evil that we do not see, but feel.”
The painting is proudly displayed in Helinick‘s headquarters in Bucharest. We are waiting for you to admire it!