Exhibition

Brancusi Photographie

10 Nov 2010 – 31 Dec 2022

Regular hours

Monday
10:00 – 18:30
Tuesday
10:00 – 18:30
Wednesday
10:00 – 18:30
Thursday
10:00 – 18:30
Friday
10:00 – 18:30
Saturday
10:00 – 16:00
Sunday
Closed

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Galerie Gmurzynska

Zürich
Zürich, Switzerland

Event map

About

Galerie Gmurzynska is exhibiting a portfolio of luminous vintage photographic works by Constantin Brancusi in its Zurich branch until December 31, 2022. The unique exhibition includes 18 vintage gelatin silver prints, showing his most iconic sculptures as well as several still lifes and a portrait, as well as an essential selection of around 200 of his photographs that are in private collections.

This is the first commercial exhibition of Brancusi’s photography in German-speaking Switzerland nearly forty years since the landmark solo museum shows of his photography at Kunsthaus Zürich in 1977 and the Fotostiftung Schweiz in 1987. This exhibition fortuito usly coincides with a dedicated room of Brancusi photography coming to the Kunsthaus Zürich in November 2022 in their Dada Cabinet, with a presentation of Man Ray and Brancusi photographs from their essential collection of eighty Brancusi prints donated by Carola Giedion-Welcker.

Throughout his career, Brancusi used photographs as a tool for cataloguing, selling, constructing, and refining his sculptures, and most importantly, as artworks in their own right. Brancusi's photographs describe the entire approach to his sculptures. By controlling the frame, lighting, and color scheme, Brancusi shares with the viewer how he wants his radical sculptures to be seen. He originally used photography as a means to document and sell his work. His friendship with Edward Steichen led to Brancusi's first exhibition in New York with Alfred Stieglitz in 1914. The two master photographers photographed Brancusi's work. When Brancusi received a photograph taken by Stieglitz of one of his sculptures being shown at the New York Exposition in 1921, he was frustrated by the inaccurate depiction of his art.

“Don't look for obscure ones formulas or mysteries. It's pure joy that I give you. Look at them until you see them.”

Constantine Brancusi 

In 1921, Brancusi met Man Ray, who accepted his help in purchasing the right equipment, installing a darkroom properly, along with instruction in darkroom techniques. Man Ray praised Brancusi in his autobiography: "One of his golden birds had been struck by the sun's rays, so that a kind of auroral light emanated from it, giving his work an explosive character." Brancusi admired women and they admired Brancusi. Many were given photographs to take with them after visiting his studio. Some complained that it was impossible to take a bath after overnight stays, as this was used to develop the photographs. In addition to his studio and works, Brancusi also photographed his friends and loved ones. And there are dozens of self-portraits and still lifes of flowers, often given or sent to girlfriends, many with dedications such as "Tonight during dress rehearsal I will be among these flowers celebrating your triumph." From 1921 until his death in 1957, only his photographs were published in all exhibition catalogues, magazines and monographs authorized by the artist. Many of them were reused by Marcel Duchamp in the catalog he designed for Brancusi's exhibition at the Brummer Gallery in New York in 1926. Brancusi himself first exhibited his photographs in Romania in 1925. After his death, Brancusi bequeathed his studio and all his creative work to the French state. Included in this estate were an estimated 700 negatives and just over 1600 prints. In addition to the collection at the Pompidou in Paris, around 200 of his photographs are in large, public collections worldwide (such as MoMA, the Metropolitan, Art Institute of Chicago, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Kunsthaus Zürich) and no fewer than around 200 more in private collections .

INFORMATION ABOUT THE GALLERY AND ITS PROGRAM AT: http://www.gmurzynska.com/

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Constantin Brancusi

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