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The Brancusi Effect
Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna 2014
The Brancusi Effect, 2014
The Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957) is numbered among the 20th century’s most influential artists. With his considerations of the way that pedestal and presented work relate to each other he launched a reorientation of the relationship between object, viewer and space. This had a decisive influence on minimal art and the aesthetic of the installation as a whole. Moreover, Brancusi’s work is seen as the initial point of a reflection on the artwork’s historical and institutional positioning. The exhibition The Brancusi Effect takes this potential into account as well as the documentary aspect implicit in Brancusi’s artistic approach, which was expressed in numerous photographic images of installations taken in his studio. The exhibition presents original photographic material together with selected positions of contemporary art that reference Brancusi, and so creates an imposing spatial installation comprising various sculptures that reflect the recent currency of the sculptural within contemporary art.
The contemporary positions in the exhibition are characterised by an enormous heterogeneity, but share an interest in the relationship between work and pedestal, work and space and the modular principle, exemplified in one of Brancusi’s most famous works Endless Column. The combination of different materials, the coexistence of different volumes and the dissolution of the idea of a supporting pedestal in favour of an integral sculptural component, also characterise the selected works by international artists. (Excerpt Press Text)
(Fig.1-6)
- Alumium, steel, papier mache, concrete, wood, lacquer, glass, plastic,
concrete, foam, fire clay, various dimensions
- Papier mache, wood, plaster, alumium, plastic, foam, fiberboard, fabric,
various dimensions
- Concrete, glass, alumium, plastic, foam, 35 x 25 x 25 cm
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