Curator, Anne Umland: My name is Anne Umland. I’m a guest curator.
This carved oak Endless Column is the first time that Brancusi created an Endless Column as an independent sculpture.
The basic model is composed of two truncated pyramids. One points up, one points down, they meet at the middle. In Romania, you can see that motif used in decorative architecture, or in furniture, even funerary columns. And what Brancusi does is take that form and make use of it in an entirely new way.
With Brancusi, he had this desire to listen to the truth of his materials. The Endless Columns are carved from single pieces of wood. And so, part of listening to the material and responding to that is preserving the column. They feel infinite or endless because these geometric and yet always slightly irregular forms can be repeated over and over again. And the organic nature of the material of wood implies growth, and that echoes the verticality of the tree.
I think that Brancusi’s sculpture does many different things, but one of the things it does best is to encourage an incredible attentiveness. He once said, “Look at my sculptures until you see them.” And it invites, if you open yourself to it, almost a sense of meditation.