Volume 43, Number 6 · April 4, 1996
Pure and Not So Simple
By David Sylvester
Constantin Brancusi 1876–1957 31, 1995.
an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, October 8–December, Catalog by Friedrich Teja Bach, by Margit Rowell, by Ann Temkin
MIT Press/The Philadelphia Museum of Art, 406 pp., $60.00
There are several reasons why the artist's studio has become a favored place for showing art. The cult of genius makes a mecca of the workshop, whether the prophet is alive or dead. The one-man exhibition has become the main vehicle for showing an artist's work, and the studio can be a permanent retrospective exhibition. More and more the content of art has come to be seen as the processes of its own making rather than something outside art, so that the space where the artist has wrestled with his problems becomes like the ground where Jacob wrestled with the angel. And photography, by advertising what studios look like inside, makes the world want to visit them.
Review, 4245 words
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