Constantine Brancusi Essay - 1582 Words

Constantine Brancusi I found it very difficult to find information on Constantine Brancusi in hard copy, therefore, you will see at the end of my paper that all of my sources are websites. The little information I did locate on the artist was very, very little. Therefore, I combined the small amount of information with some research I found on artists that were strongly influenced by Brancusi. Brancusis imprint on contemporary sculptural practice ranges from the dissemination of furniture-oriented sculpture and the emerging topos of architectural folly to new paradigms for public art. At the same time many postwar artists engaging in a dialogue with his legacy have read and productively misread Brancusis work. Through the†¦show more content†¦Brancusis revolutionary reversal of the base from passive podium to generative element has likewise informed Didier Vermeiren, who is best known for his large corpus of works based on the assemblage of two identical pedestals. In Vermeirens so-called pedestal on top of a pedestal, pedestal and sculpture form replicas of one another. Elevating the element that is ordinarily used for the display of works gauged more valuable, all these artists have cunningly received, aesthetic orders. In the process, they have problematized and restructured the power relations between high and low, aesthetic and functional. Similarly, in different versions of the Endless Column, Brancusi played categories of pedestal against sculpture, and sculpture against architectural unit, until formal and functional elements performed an intricate self-cancellation. Unquestionably, next to the producer of the readymade, Brancusi was a legitimate transformateur Du Champ. The reversals exercised by Burton, Pettibone, Puryear, and Vermeiren with their point of departure in Brancusis works have subsequently been extended by younger artists interested not only in subverting prevailing cultural codes, but also in enhancing the social function