ROMANIA.- The exhibition Brâncuși: Romanian Sources and Universal Perspectives aims to illustrate the particularity of the artist who managed to create pure forms, free of any influence. By reaching in and extracting the essence of beings and objects, Brâncuși crossed geographical, historical and formal borders and, today, remains an artist who defies all labels.

His work was enriched both by his own biographical experiences and by his natural curiosity to continually discover new horizons: he would leave Romania at the age of twenty-eight, on a pilgrimage across Europe, led by the mirage of Paris’s artistic life. Nevertheless, his Romanian heritage would be present in his mind, serving as the foundation of his development as an artist over which he would layer images, shadows and lights long into his years of creative maturity.

Accordingly, the exhibition highlights the different stages of Brâncuși’s creative career, from his works under the tutelage of the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest and his confrontation with Rodin’s sculpture to the radical decision to abandon modelling in favour of direct carving, which marks a return to primaeval arts and opens the path towards modern art.

The exhibition benefits from exceptional loans from the National Museum of Modern Art, Center Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, the Guggenheim Foundation, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the National Museum of Art in Bucharest and the Museum of Art in Craiova, as well as from private collections.

One of the most important series included in the show —one on which the artist worked over the course of forty years The Kiss is a thread which runs through Brâncuși’s career. The series opens with the first Kiss carved in 1907—a turning point in Brâncuși’s career as he adopts the direct cut technique—and gives way to a range of sculptures and numerous drawings, finally climaxing with the complex piece Borne frontière [Border Marker], completed in 1945.

Borne frontière is his only sculpture related to a historical event from his native country: moved by the events between 1940 and 1945, when Romania lost parts of its territory, Brâncuși expands the meaning of the lovers’ intimacy to incorporate a more general sense of unity and understanding, of peace. The work translates as a manifesto of sorts at the core of the upcoming exhibition.

Additionally, other important series will be included in the show, such as the busts of children or the busts of women (like La Muse endormie or Mlle Pogany) and the series of Bird in space, the first version of which, Maïastra, is inspired directly from Romanian folktales; along with sculptures in wood, like the Endless Column (an important element of the Monumental Ensemble in Târgu Jiu), all of which are displayed in order to show the sculptor’s attachment to figures and narrative created to his formative years in Romania.

Moreover, a significant part of Brâncuși’s work was devoted to photography, to which he applied himself with passion. An important set of photographs from public and private collections is also displayed in order to complete the portrait of this great artist of the 20th century.

For Romanian and international guests — as Timișoara is the 2023 European Capital of Culture—the exhibition represents a special opportunity to discover and admire the works by the artist who managed to wield the cultural heritage of his country in the most subtle of ways, imbuing it with universal values. In one of his workshop notes, probably written at an old age, Brâncuși shares his vision of a world without borders, in which all the natural elements — from beings and plants to geological phenomena — contribute to the harmony of creation: “My homeland, my family. It’s the earth that turns, the breath of wind, the floating clouds, the river flowing, the scorching fire, the green grass — the dry grass — dust, snow.” This note expresses the cosmogonic conception which is at the centre of Brâncuși’s work when seen as a whole, and which the exhibition hopes to convey.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition under the direction of the curator.

The exhibition is co-organized by the National Museum of Art Timișoara, the Art Encounters Foundation and the French Institute in Romania and is financed by the Timiș County Council and the main partner Banca Transilvania.

Timișoara National Art Museum
Brâncuși: Romanian Sources and Universal Perspectives
September 30th, 2023 - January 28th, 2024
Curator: Doina Lemny, author and PhD art historian