Sculpture: Costantin Brancusi

Constantin Brancusi’s atelier, restored by architect Renzo Piano in 1997 and re-settled in a paivillion adjacent to the Centre Pompidou in Paris, is a transparent treasure-chest of beauty, filled with the work of one of the 20th century’s most fascinating artists, as well as his tools, just the way he left them at the time of his death, in 1957. In this suggestive scenario, Alain Fleischer has created a masterly “work on the work”, reconstructing the links between various aspects of Brancusi’s work, through a knowlegeable interweaving of sculpture, photography, cinema and dance. In the documentary, which is part of a series on sculpture (also produced in a 3D version), extraordinary sweeping shots of the studio and footage of the sculptures on their own are accompanied by photographs and films shot by Brancusi himself in the 1920s and 30s. The artist often used a cine-camera to shoot himself at work: “créer comme un Dieu, commander comme un roi, travailler comme un esclave” (“create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave”), and also to immortalize one of his muses, the American dancer Florence Meyer.