Tuesday, July 27, 2010
UP UP AND AWAY @ 7:57 PM
Out of the ovoid comes something beautiful - LIFE. A bird, if you will. Or any other animal, even man. Beautiful but limited. And perhaps in that way, less beautiful. That is why we all try to rise beyond what we are - every single
being struggles to move upward, to escape the confines of his condition.
Up a career ladder, social ladder, or just to move to a higher storey to get a bird's eye view of things and escape from the chaos and impurities that plague us.
The desire to go UP UP UP is perhaps human nature. And of my artworks demonstrate this concept:
Bird in Space (1923)
In this series of sculptures, I sought to condense the essence of flight into this one sleek sculpture, and to represent an upward thrust in a static object. I concentrated not on the physical attributes of the bird but on its movement - done away with the feathers and wings, and simplified the body and head into a smooth slanted plane.
This is inspired by the folklore of my homeland, Romania. One of the more memorable tales told of a Maiastra, a beautiful golden bird which foretells the future and heals the blind.
I made seven in marble, and nine in bronze.
And how infuriating it was to see the US Customs question its legitimacy as art!
Here is what TIME magazine wrote on the subject:
"Rumanian Sculptor Constantin Brancusi had to pay $4,000 to bring his Bird in Flight into the U. S. ... Works of art are duty free. But Sculptor Brancusi's bird had neither head, feet nor feathers. It was four and a half feet of bronze which swooped up from its base like a slender jet of flame. Customs Inspector Kracke said it was not art; merely "a manufacture of metal . . . held dutiable at 40% ad valorem." The press bantered, jibed. Indignant modernists wrote abstruse, defensive paragraphs. Sculptor Brancusi complained to the Customs Court.
"Last week Sculptor Brancusi won his case. In its decision the Customs Court dogmatically defined art: "It is a work of art by reason of its symmetrical shape, artistic outlines and beauty of finish." Even the most wretched of logicians knows enough not to repeat the same term in both subject and definition ("art" —"artistic outline"). But Sculptor Brancusi had his money refunded."
However, I am glad that the piece provoked thought on the ever-debatable question "What is art?" and even effected some changes in the criteria we set for ART.
The Endless Column (installed in 1938, restored in 2000)
Hopefully some of you would have seen it at Targu Jiu, Romania. It is part of an ensemble that comprises two other works - The Kiss Gate and The Table of Silence.
The sculpture is based on the axis mundi, and made as a tribute to the Romanians who sacrificed their lives in World War 2 protecting our homeland against Germany. It is thus a stylization of the funerary pillars used in Romania, but so high that it seems to be stretching infinitely into the skies, the heavens, the cosmos.
UP is the direction in which we struggle throughout our lifetime, and it is also where we end up eventually.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
UP UP AND AWAY @ 7:57 PM
Out of the ovoid comes something beautiful - LIFE. A bird, if you will. Or any other animal, even man. Beautiful but limited. And perhaps in that way, less beautiful. That is why we all try to rise beyond what we are - every single
being struggles to move upward, to escape the confines of his condition.
Up a career ladder, social ladder, or just to move to a higher storey to get a bird's eye view of things and escape from the chaos and impurities that plague us.
The desire to go UP UP UP is perhaps human nature. And of my artworks demonstrate this concept:
Bird in Space (1923)
In this series of sculptures, I sought to condense the essence of flight into this one sleek sculpture, and to represent an upward thrust in a static object. I concentrated not on the physical attributes of the bird but on its movement - done away with the feathers and wings, and simplified the body and head into a smooth slanted plane.
This is inspired by the folklore of my homeland, Romania. One of the more memorable tales told of a Maiastra, a beautiful golden bird which foretells the future and heals the blind.
I made seven in marble, and nine in bronze.
And how infuriating it was to see the US Customs question its legitimacy as art!
Here is what TIME magazine wrote on the subject:
"Rumanian Sculptor Constantin Brancusi had to pay $4,000 to bring his Bird in Flight into the U. S. ... Works of art are duty free. But Sculptor Brancusi's bird had neither head, feet nor feathers. It was four and a half feet of bronze which swooped up from its base like a slender jet of flame. Customs Inspector Kracke said it was not art; merely "a manufacture of metal . . . held dutiable at 40% ad valorem." The press bantered, jibed. Indignant modernists wrote abstruse, defensive paragraphs. Sculptor Brancusi complained to the Customs Court.
"Last week Sculptor Brancusi won his case. In its decision the Customs Court dogmatically defined art: "It is a work of art by reason of its symmetrical shape, artistic outlines and beauty of finish." Even the most wretched of logicians knows enough not to repeat the same term in both subject and definition ("art" —"artistic outline"). But Sculptor Brancusi had his money refunded."
However, I am glad that the piece provoked thought on the ever-debatable question "What is art?" and even effected some changes in the criteria we set for ART.
The Endless Column (installed in 1938, restored in 2000)
Hopefully some of you would have seen it at Targu Jiu, Romania. It is part of an ensemble that comprises two other works - The Kiss Gate and The Table of Silence.
The sculpture is based on the axis mundi, and made as a tribute to the Romanians who sacrificed their lives in World War 2 protecting our homeland against Germany. It is thus a stylization of the funerary pillars used in Romania, but so high that it seems to be stretching infinitely into the skies, the heavens, the cosmos.
UP is the direction in which we struggle throughout our lifetime, and it is also where we end up eventually.
