The exhibition "Brancusi 150 - Brancusi ne priveste pe toti" ("Brancusi concerns us all") will open on Thursday at 6:00 pm in the Kretzulescu Hall of the National Museum of Art of Romania (MNAR).
Organised in partnership with the Constantin Brancusi Research, Documentation and Promotion Centre, the exhibition proposes a journey through the life of Constantin Brancusi, starting in 1876, as the artist himself notes in his autobiography. The route traces his years of work in Romania, represented by classical works from the Craiova and Bucharest schools; his departure for Paris; and his early classical creations up to the break with Auguste Rodin and with everything he had produced until then, including The Kiss, Prayer and The Wisdom of the Earth, MNAR said in a press release sent to AGERPRES on Tuesday.
The conceptual staging is conceived as a film-like sequence, in which key moments from Brancusi's birth to his death unfold through photographs and documents interwoven with the artist's aphorisms in three languages - Romanian, French and English.
The exhibition highlights key moments in Brancusi's career, including his participation in the 1913 Armory Show in New York, which marked the contested emergence of modern art; the 1920 Princess X scandal; the dedication to his work by The Little Review in 1921; and his 1926 exhibition at the Brummer Gallery. It also recalls the 1927-1928 Bird in Space customs case in the United States, which led Brancusi to challenge and ultimately change the official definition of Modern Art.
The narrative further traces the beginning of the unfinished Temple of Indore project in 1931; his 1935 letter to Milita Petrascu accepting the commission for the Targu Jiu ensemble, completed in 1937; The Boundary Stone of 1945, which concluded The Kiss series and his sculptural oeuvre; his acquisition of French citizenship in 1952; his first European solo exhibition, held at the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest in 1956 at the age of 80; the drafting of his will later that year; and his death in 1957.
Presented as printed "film sequences", the exhibition will feature the sculptural series The Kiss, The Ovoids, The Birds, The Columns, Miss Pogany, Princesses X, The Cockerels and Animalia, as well as a list of unrealised projects, from The Fountain of Narcissus, dedicated to Spiru Haret, to the monuments to Goga and Caragiale.
The exhibition concludes with the sequence entitled Posterity, offering an overview of how Brancusi's image has evolved over the past 36 years.
In addition, the works Head of a Child, Prayer (copy) and Portrait of Petre Stanescu will be on display.
The exhibition will be open until 22 February.
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