Constantin Brancusi: shifting the bases of art

Abstract

She discusses, most specifically, how the imperiled status of the subject in an alienated, technological age is addressed by Brancusi's fragmented figures and by the displacement of the masculine by the feminine subject in his production; how the inward-looking, modern subject is invoked by Brancusi's polished, mirroring sculptures, which invite narcissistic reflection; how the changing status of the handmade object in the age of mass production is suggested by Brancusi's use of repetition; how the perceived erosion of gender boundaries in the modern age is treated in numerous sculptures involving scrambled sexual signs; and how the search for new means of transcendence and liberation is evinced in the reinvigorated image of sexual love and spiritual striving glimpsed in certain of Brancusi's most important works.

Contents

About Brancusi -- 1. Figuration and Disfiguration: The Vanishing Muse -- 2. The Reflected and Reflective Gaze: For the Love of Narcissus -- 3. Princess X/Prince's Sex: Repositioning Gender -- 4. Fables of Creation: The Cosmogonic Egg -- 5. Difference, Displacement, and the Ethnographic Attitude -- 6. The Object on Trial: The Bird and the Base in Space -- 7. Public and Private Spaces: Monuments, Temples, and the Studio.