Curator, Anne Umland: You’re looking at a film Brancusi made to document the largest of all of his Endless Columns in his native Romania. And this Endless Column, which measures almost 100 feet in height and is clad in brass, was one part of a memorial to honor fallen Romanian soldiers who had served in World War I.
Video Producer, Sarah Cowan: Through the crop of the camera frame, he can demonstrate this idea of endlessness. He almost obsessively tilts up this massive work. The speed with which he’s moving, the repetitious form, and the fragmentation that happens because of the frame of the camera—it’s demonstrating that his column is infinite.
He also seems to be studying the effects of different weather conditions. So when it’s foggy, the sculpture just disappears into the clouds. He also seems to love these moments when there’s strong sunlight, which develops new shadows. I think he’s fascinated to see how it changes.
Anne Umland: Now I’ll invite you to turn around. You can see a 10-foot-tall Endless Column. And then if you keep looking back through the doorway, you should be able to catch a glimpse of the very first Endless Column that you saw in this exhibition, which is about seven feet high.
Brancusi once wrote, “I did not repeat them, merely to do them differently, but to go further.” And I think there’s no better motif to look at to understand what he was thinking about than the Endless Columns.