Serra/Brancusi Hardcover - 2011

From the publisher

In recent years, critics and curators have pursued fascinating lines of analogy and sympathy between the sculptural oeuvres of Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) and Richard Serra (born 1939). Foremost among these shared qualities is the awareness of surrounding space both sculptors foster in the viewer, compelling a spatial encounter in which the sculpture resonates well beyond its own formal achievements. Serra and Brancusi also enjoy a mutual fascination with stacking elements, with spreading and concentrating forms and with stressing weight and material. But the distinctions between their oeuvres are also very telling: where Brancusi plays with the function of the base in his sculptures, making them an integral component of the work, Serra rejects the base altogether and uses the floor, walls and surrounding architecture as part of his enterprise. Constantin Brancusi and Richard Serra: Resting in Time and Space explores this retroactive art-historical conversation by juxtaposing 35 key Brancusis with a selection of Serras from across the artist's career. Key works in marble, bronze, wood and plaster are oriented within the themes outlined above, which position the oeuvres of Brancusi and Serra as the purest and most innovative articulations of abstract sculpture of the past century.