“Why, it is my studio,” Constantin Brancusi exclaimed when he first glimpsed New York City’s skyline in 1926. “All these blocks, all these shapes to be shifted and juggled with, as the experiment grows and changes.” Brancusi’s actual studio, on impasse Ronsin in Paris, was where he lived, worked, entertained friends and clients, and displayed his sculptures. There, he created some of his most groundbreaking works, which blurred traditional boundaries between pedestal and object, movement and stillness, originality and variation. Among them was Bird in Space, notoriously declared by a US customs agent to be inadmissible as a work of art. Over four decades, Brancusi’s Paris studio evolved from an active space of experimentation to an all-encompassing environment—a work of art in itself.
Wanting to preserve the unity of the studio, Brancusi bequeathed its entire contents to France in 1957, transforming a home, workshop, and exhibition site into an enduring monument. Known today as the Atelier Brancusi, it is a cherished part of Centre Pompidou’s collection in Paris—and, like that museum, it is currently closed for renovations. For the first time in decades, rarely lent sculptures will travel to New York, along with a rich selection of Brancusi’s photographs, films, hand-carved furniture and pedestals, tools, and archival materials.
This large-scale exhibition brings these works into dialogue with MoMA’s celebrated Brancusi collection and several important local loans. Together, they shed new light on Brancusi’s sculptures while revealing his studio as a place of work, play, and invention, offering an intimate, complex portrait of an artist who redefined sculpture in the 20th century through the radical simplicity of his forms.
Organized by Anne Umland, guest curator, and Mia Matthias, Assistant Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, with Samantha Small, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture. We are grateful for the collaboration of Ariane Coulondre, Chief Curator, Department of Modern Collections, and Valérie Loth, Associate Curator, Department of Prints and Drawings, Centre Pompidou – Musée national d’art moderne, who organized Brancusi: Art Is Just Beginning at Centre Pompidou in 2024. This exhibition is presented with the exceptional support of Centre Pompidou, which permanently houses the Atelier Brancusi in Paris.