Seduced by Smoothness: Modernism’s Lasting Spell
Today's Stories
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It is Monday, August seventeenth, two thousand twenty-six. Let’s dive in.
Christie’s helped kick off a fresh wave of Brancusi attention this spring with a “cinematic short film” starring Nicole Kidman, staged in its Rockefeller Center galleries. Set to David Bowie’s “Golden Years,” the spot follows Kidman as she slips away from an unnamed caller, circles behind a curtain, and becomes visibly absorbed by Constantin Brancusi’s Danaïde (1913), a bronze coated in gold leaf. The film cuts between her fixed gaze and a fantasy montage tying the sculpture to everything from Greek statuary and Buddhas to John William Waterhouse’s The Danaïdes (1904)—and even, anachronistically, Alberto Giacometti’s The Chariot (1951). Soon she’s dancing around the work, hair tousled. Danaïde later sold for one hundred seven dollars million, setting a record price for a sculpture at auction.
That’s it for today’s Daily Art Download. Links to everything I mentioned are waiting for you in the show notes—come back tomorrow for your next dose of art-world reality. Chinga la migra