Why Brancusi’s Sleek, Streamlined Sculptures Still Seduce
ARTnews highlighted renewed attention to Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957) following Christie’s promotional short film featuring Nicole Kidman with his bronze-and-gold-leaf sculpture Danaïde (1913) at Rockefeller Center. Danaïde sold at auction for a record $107.6 million, the highest price ever paid for a sculpture at auction. Separately, Brancusi’s reconstructed studio contents—bequeathed to the French government on the condition that his Paris 15th arrondissement atelier be preserved—have been traveling during Centre Pompidou renovations, landing in summer 2026 at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie for Germany’s first major Brancusi exhibition in about 50 years. The exhibition includes more than 150 sculptures plus works on paper, photographs, and archival materials, and a related presentation is scheduled to open at MoMA in October 2026.
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This story was covered in Seduced by Smoothness: Modernism’s Lasting Spell