BRANCUSI, THE METAMORPHOSIS OF SCULPTURE

“Art is just beginning,” declared Constantin Brancusi. Universally acknowledge as the father of modern sculpture, he revolutionized the artistic language, paving the way for three-dimensional abstraction.

Born in 1876 in Romania to a prosperous farming family, young Brancusi trained at the Fine School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, where he quickly distanced himself from realistic representation. In 1904, he moved to Paris and briefly worked as an assistant to Rodin, before breaking away from his tutelary figure to embark on his quest of “pure form”. In his studio – an artwork in its own right that he occupied until his death – he continually pushed boundaries, developing a minimalist style that broke with the conventions of the time.

Poetic and intimate, this film retraces Brancusi’s journey through his works, between Paris and his native land, to which he remained deeply attached – and where he conceived monumental installations such as the Endless Column. But the culmination of his art is above embodied in his studio, the product of a lifetime creation – a mesmerizing sanctuary, reconstructed in its entirety at the Centre Pompidou.