The Endless Column Ensemble, by famed Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957), has been hailed as one of the great works of twentieth-century public art. Commissioned by the National League of Gorj Women to honour the soldiers who had defended the town of Târgu Jiu against a German force in 1916, the tripartite ensemble, erected between 1937 and 1938, is composed of the Endless Column, a 30-metre-high column of zinc and brass-clad, cast-iron modules, and two stone monuments: the Gate of the Kiss and Table of Silence. Over the years the elements took their toll on the sculpture, and although the Column's modules had been replated several times since its construction, by the 1990s it was in dire need of conservation. This stunningly llustrated volume celebrates the history of this extraordinary work of art and tells the story of its recent restoration, landscaping and presentation, supported in large part by the World Monuments Fund (WMF). Brancusi s Endless Column Ensemble launches a series of books co-published by Scala and the WMF, the foremost private organisation dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage around the globe through a programme of fieldwork, advocacy, training and grantmaking. Since its founding in 1965, WMF has worked to stem the loss of more than 430 irreplaceable sites in 83 countries. AUTHOR: Ernest Beck is a New York-based freelance writer and editor. Formerly at The Wall Street Journal, he has been widely published in The New York Times and other arts magazines. Sorana Georgescu-Gorjan, born in Romania, is the curator of the Endless Column archives and editor of the Târgu Jiu journals: Brancusi and Portal Maiastra. She has also authored many books on Brancusi. Richard Newton practised as an architect in the UK prior to moving to the US. He has been a landscape architect with the Olin Partnership since 1993, and managed the landscape restoration of this project. Alexandra Parigoris is Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Fine Arts, History of Art and Cultural Studies, at the University of Leeds. She has taught at Queens University in Canada, and at the Universities of York and of Leeds, where she was a Henry Moore Fellow. Mihai Radu was born in Romania and moved to the US in the 1980s. A successful architect, he eventually become a founding partner of the practice Lauster & Radu Architects (now known as Radu Architects). William Tucker, born in Cairo, spent most of his early life the UK. After studying sculpture in London, he moved to New York in the 1970s. He has since built on his success as a widely acclaimed sculptor, with exhibitions in the US and abroad. 63 colour & 35 b/w illustrations

Offers information on the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1956), presented as part of the Artchive Web site of Mark Harden. Highlights Brancusi's techniques and contains images and descriptions of some of his sculptures.

This definitive book on the work of Constantin Brancusi is back in print, in deluxe hardcover. It features one of the most complete collections of Brancusi's work in one volume. Author Radu Varia, one of the world's foremost experts on Brancusi, illuminates a fascinating discussion on Brancusi's works, influences, and inspirations with hundreds of great photographs. Included are an exploration of the inspirations for Brancusi's work, as well as a presentation and discussion of the complex of works at Ta rgu-Jiu, Romania.

Claudia Moscovici asserts in Romanticism and Postromanticism that the Romantic heritage, far from being important only in a historical sense, has philosophical relevance and value for contemporary art and culture. With an emphasis on artistic tradition as a continuing source of inspiration and innovation, she touches upon each main branch of philosophy: aesthetics, epistemology, and ethics. The book begins by describing some of the most interesting features of the Romantic movement that still fuel our culture. It then addresses the question: How did an artistic movement whose focus was emotive expression change into a quest for formal experimentation? And finally, Moscovici considers the aesthetic philosophy of postromanticism by thinking through how the Romantic emphasis upon beauty and passion can be combined with the modern and postmodern emphasis on originality and experimentation.

This catalog, published in conjunction with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection of Venice, documents the first major exhibition of Brancusi the photographer. While Brancusi's attraction to the medium is well-known, his photographs have always been seen as secondary to his other studio work. But the 96 photographs collected in this volume are to be seen as an oeuvre in their own right, formally autonomous, showing exceptional aesthetic and technical quality.The book opens new dimensions in space and time of Brancusi's work, especially for three plaster works featured: The Sleeping Muse, The Torso of a Youth, and The Baroness. The exceptional quality and openness of Brancusi-the photographer-gives vantage points on the aesthetic world beyond the realm of his bronze, marble, or wooden works.

In this elegantly written and beautifully illustrated book, Nico Israel reveals how spirals are at the heart of the most significant literature and visual art of the twentieth century. Juxtaposing the work of writers and artists—including W. B. Yeats and Vladimir Tatlin, James Joyce and Marcel Duchamp, and Samuel Beckett and Robert Smithson—he argues that spirals provide a crucial frame for understanding the mutual involvement of modernity, history, and geopolitics, complicating the spatio-temporal logic of literary and artistic genres and of scholarly disciplines. The book takes the spiral not only as its topic but as its method. Drawing on the writings of Walter Benjamin and Alain Badiou, Israel theorizes a way of reading spirals, responding to their dual-directionality as well as their affective power. The sensations associated with spirals––flying, falling, drowning, being smothered—reflect the anxieties of limits tested or breached, and Israel charts these limits as they widen from the local to the global and recoil back. Chapters mix literary and art history to explore 'pataphysics, Futurism, Vorticism, Dada and Surrealism, "Concentrisme," minimalism, and entropic earth art; a coda considers the work of novelist W. G. Sebald and contemporary artist William Kentridge. In Spirals, Israel offers a refreshingly original approach to the history of modernism and its aftermaths, one that gives modernist studies, comparative literature, and art criticism an important new spin.

The pure, abstract sculptures made by Constantin Brancusi have had a large and enthusiastic audience in New York ever since they were first shown on American soil at the 1913 Armory Show. The numerous American collectors, muses, friends, and exhibitions that enabled his success had a profound influence on the eccentric Romanian artist who lived in Paris. And the feeling was definitely reciprocated. From the trial concerning his Bird in Space--which helped define modern art--to his first museum retrospective, and his dream of a skyscraper sculpture, New York was the place where Brancusi's career unfolded. Over the last one hundred years his effect on the city's art scene has never waned. Through stunning archival images and text by Brancusi authority Jérôme Neutres, Brancusi New York tells the story of the mutually beneficial relationship between the sculptor and the Big Apple. The book also features gorgeous new photographs of the five bronze sculptures on display at the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York for the exhibition Brancusi in New York: 1913-2013.