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BRÂNCUȘI CORRUPTIONS & JUXTAPOISONS FLORIAN FOUCHÉ
BRÂNCUȘI
CORRUPTIONS & JUXTAPOISONS
FLORIAN FOUCHÉ
This dossier presents the elements of the project to create an exhibition entitled Brâncuși: Corruptions and Juxtapoisons: an introductory text, notes and reproductions of pieces, grouped into sections. Some pieces are already completed, others are in the process of being created. They all include works by Brâncuși which I have photographed or filmed these last years.
September 2018.
Cover: Photo excerpted from ASSASINS: the Recomposition of the Brâncuși Atelier, plate 5, 2016.2
p. 4 Introduction, 2018 p. 8 The Little Girl Sent to the Corner, 2013
p. 13 ASSASINS: the Recomposition of the Brâncuși Atelier, 2016
p. 27 The Prayer, Madeleine Metro Station, 2015
p. 31 The Prayer, a Chronology, 2015-2018
p. 34 Pierrot, 2016
p. 37 Mourning, 2015
p. 39 Hemiplegia, 2015
p. 42 Paris, 2016
p. 43 Tîrgu-Jiu, 2018
p. 44 Rue des Héros, Marseille, 2015
p. 48 The Kiss (a Tribute to Ana Mendieta), 2015-2018
1. FANTASY AT THE MUSEUM
2. THE LOST ATELIER
5. JUXTAPOISONINGS
6. TATIANA ≠ ANA
3. ARCHITECTURE FOR THE SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE
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BRÂNCUȘI : CORRUPTIONS & JUXTAPOISONS, the Exhibition
4. STATES OF ALARM
In 2013, when I was visiting the Musée National d’Art Moderne (Pompidou Center), I spotted Brâncuși’s Caryatid isolated in the corner of a large white room, set aside by a system of “distancing” – a rubber band stretched between two small grey posts on the ground before the sculpture. An image came to mind – it was as if the sculpture had been sent to the corner for punishment. This involuntary and absurd mise en scène transformed the work of art into a little girl who had been punished. I took a photo, to which I added two others, taken a few days later. They portrayed a bed in a room lit by a small lamp. One person is completely hidden under a draped bedcover with only a hand visible. The physical rapprochement of the images linked two heterogeneous spaces. First, I made a model, then La Petite Fille Punie (The Little Girl Sent to the Corner, p.8) became a parallelepiped in wood, three meters high, upon which the three photographs, magnetized, were mounted onto metal plaques.
I showed this piece in my exhibition Le Musée Antidote (Passerelle Contemporary Art Center, Brest, 2014), to provide perspective on my investigations on spatial and institutional design at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant from 1990 to 2002. The Little Girl Sent to the Corner is the first piece in an ensemble that today has become Brâncuși: Corruptions & Juxtapoisons.
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From 2014 to 2018, I have been systematically observing the manner in which Brâncuși’s work was presented, mainly in museums and public spaces in Paris. For Brâncuși, the atelier on the Impasse Ronsin was an experimental living space, one where he spent days and nights organizing the creation and presentation of sculptures and photographing them. This place, which had been occupied by the artist until his death, was destroyed – a permanent loss. The works he left to the State continue to be transformed, for better, and, above all, for worse. The ways in which Brâncuși’s works are shown are corrupted configurations from his atelier.
The “Juxtapoisons” describe specific states of these transformations, “juxtaposing” them with images created elsewhere. The Juxtapoisons are pharmakoi: they affect the perception of Brâncuși’s photographed works by forming a network of corrupted configurations that then act as a “remedy” of the corrupted configurations. The Juxtapoisons generate parallel lives in which Brâncuși’s sculptures become apparitions, as well as bodies among others. The Juxtapoisons amplify or pervert the effects of incompatibility between the objects and their milieu. In places where I have perceived dissociation, I generated links in the form of hallucinatory contiguities.
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displaceddispersed squeezedheightenedre-mountedoverturnedre-coveredreplicatedre-constitutedplaced in storage in a corner at a distancehermit-crabbedcountedcartographiedcommentedsoldstolen
bent dreamedconvulsedoverturned
reduced brought together
enlargedaerated
polarizedstacked
illuminatedpedunculated
polyroledhidden
maskedghospicized
boxed into obscurity resold
venerated
Corrupted Configurations Juxtapoisons ,
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Juxtapoisons ,
1. FANTASY AT THE MUSEUM
The Litte Girl Sent to the Corner
2013
Wood, metal, glass, paint, magnets, argentic prints, projector
302 x 200 x 150 cm
(Collection CNAP, Paris, 2015)
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(à propos de La petite fille punie)
Lors d’une visite au musée national d’Art moderne en 2013, j’ai photographié une sculpture de Constantin Brâncuși, la Cariatide de 1943-1948, retirée dans le coin d’une grande salle blanche, isolée par un système de « mise à distance » : un élastique tendu entre deux petits poteaux gris, au sol, devant elle. Ce jour-là, la Cariatide était « au coin », maltraitée, et j’ai vu « la petite fille punie ». Ces mots qui allaient devenir un titre me sont venus au musée. Tout part donc d’un fantasme au musée, de ma perception de l’accrochage en tant que mise en scène involontaire et absurde. Dans mon atelier, j’ai rapproché ma photographie de deux autres faites quelques jours après, montrant un lit dans une chambre éclairée par une petite lampe. Une personne, dont on voit seulement la main, est cachée sous une couverture tendue. Le rapprochement physique des images relie deux espaces hétérogènes. J’ai d’abord fait une maquette et plus tard La petite fille punie (p.10) est devenue un parallélépipède en bois de trois mètres de haut, qui porte les trois grandes photographies aimantées sur des plaques de métal.
La petite fille punie est la première pièce de l’ensemble Brâncuși : juxtapoisons. Elle a été réalisée dans le cadre de mon exposition Le musée antidote au CAC Passerelle à Brest en 2014 (commissariat Étienne Bernard). Voir Florian Fouché & Marianne Mesnil, « Le musée antidote mis en pratique », revue Martor n°23, octobre 2018.
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2. THE LOST ATELIER
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ASSASINS: the Recomposition of the Brâncuși Atelier
2016Portfolio of 14 plates (29.7 x 42 cm) made up of twenty-eight photographs.
I photographed Brâncuși’s atelier as it has been reconstituted on the Place Georges Pompidou. I set these photographs alongside views created elsewhere.
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13Giuseppe Belvedere feeds the pigeons behind the reconstituted Brâncuși atelier, Place Georges Pompidou, Paris, september 2015.
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Square in front of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Place Georges Pompidou, Paris, novembre 2015.
1515In front of the reconstituted atelier of Brâncuși, Place Georges Pompidou, Paris, November 2015.
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16Entrance to the reconstituted atelier of Brâncuși, November 2015.
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17Endless Column and an armchair in the entrance of the reconstituted atelier of Brâncuși, November 2015.
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Left: northern aisle of the reconstituted atelier of Brâncuși, November 2015. Right: Monoprix department store, Avenue Jean Jaurès, Paris, September 2015.
19Gauche: hôpital neurologique, Bron, novembre 2015. Droite: couloir sud de l’atelier reconstitué de Constantin Brâncuși, novembre 2015.
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Left: Neurological Hospital, Bron, November 2015. Right: southern aisle of the reconstituted atelier of Brâncuși, November 2015.
21Left: Lunch at L’Ayette, La Crau, August 2015. Right: the reconstituted atelier of Brâncuși, view from the courtyard, November 2015.
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22The reconstituted atelier of Brâncuși, view from the street, November 2015.
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23Above: the glass ceiling as seen from the southern aisle of the reconstituted atelier of Brâncuși, November 2015.Below: Violette Astier works on The Coat of Kiepja at the Ivry atelier, July 2016.
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25Left: southern aisle of the reconstituted atelier of Brâncuși, November 2015. Right: occupation of the former Château Landon barracks by exiles and activists, Paris, June 9, 2015.
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26Above: the glass ceiling as seen from the southern aisle of Brâncuși’s reconstituted atelier, November 2015.Below: occupation of the former Château Landon barracks by exiles and activists, Paris, June 9, 2015.
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3. ARCHITECTURE FOR THE SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE
« Architecture for the search for knowledge. An insight is needed (and that probably very soon) as to what is specially lacking in our great cities namely, quiet, spacious, and widely extended places for reflection, places with long, lofty colonnades for bad weather, or for too sunny days, where no noise of wagons or of shouters would penetrate, and where a more refined propriety would prohibit loud praying even to the priest: buildings and situations which as a whole would express the sublimity of self communion and seclusion from the world. » Nietzsche, The Gay Science
Since 2000, a replica of Brâncuși’s sculpture, The Prayer (1907), has been placed in a showcase beneath an escalator at the Madeleine metro station in Paris. I created a performance piece which was filmed on this site in 2015.
LIEN: https://vimeo.com/137162482 PASSWORD: foucusi 28
LIEN: https://vimeo.com/137162482 PASSWORD: foucusi
The Prayer, Madeleine Metro Station(screen capture excerpted from the video)
2015
Video, continuous playback 2’37”. Montage: Félix Albert and Florian Fouché. Cameraman: Félix Albert.29
The Prayer, Madeleine Metro Station (9 screen captures excerpted from the video) 30
Excerpt from the text The Prayer, a Chronology:
« In 1968, at the end of his book Brancusi: a Study of the Sculpture, Sidney Geist placed a list of what he referred to as “objects of doubtful status” in the work of Constantin Brâncuși in a discreet note. Three of the objects cited were related to The Prayer: a replica he saw with his own eyes at Buzau in the 1960s is presented on Brâncuși’s original pedestal. In contrast with the original, created in bronze, this one is in “reconstituted stone.” Geist refers to two other bronze copies commissioned by the Romanian government in 1963, one of which can be found at the Belu cemetery in Bucharest.
On March 14, 1994, the replica in reconstituted stone was stolen from the Buzau cemetery.
In 1995, the bust of Petre Stanescu at the National Museum of Art of Romania was moved and, since then, its pedestal seems to have remained empty.
In 1996, the stolen replica of The Prayer was found in a warehouse that stocked wood for heating. The ensuing police investigation established that a Russian named Valer, the owner of a taxi company who lived in Cluj, seemed to have acted on behalf of an international criminal organization who had planned to sell the sculpture to a South American. Valer is said to have declared that Brâncuși sold better on the other side of the Atlantic. Nothing was revealed about how they managed to steal a sculpture weighing 360 kilos from the little cemetery in Buzau.
In 2001, the President of the Fondation Franco Roumaine Internationale presented a replica of The Prayer to France to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the artist’s birth. The RATP (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens) was commissioned to display the statue and it is this replica that was duly installed at the Madeleine metro station. »
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4. STATES OF ALARM
Hemiplegia (p. 40), Mourning (p. 39) and Pierrot (p. 36) make up a triptych of “photographic assemblages.” Pierrot is the only work that had been previously conceived and presented in 2016 at the atelier of Eustache Kossakowski, in Paris, at the home of Anka Ptaszkowska. At the time, the other two were in the model stage. These three assemblages play off the juxtaposition of dissimilar images. They convey a series of psycho-physiological experiences linked to the events of my existence – perceptions of paralysis, a personal tragedy and a comic split.
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Pierrot
2015-2016
Wood, metal, glass, paint, magnets, argentic prints, projector
373 x 110 x 85 cm
Exhibition at the Paris atelier of Eustache Kossakowski at the home of Anka Ptaszkowska(03.03_01.11.2016)
Pierrot (front view) 3534
36Pierrot (back view)
Mourning
2015
Model for an assemblage with photographs and lighting.Wood, metal, paint, magnets, argentic prints, projector.
32 x 13,5 x 7 cm
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Hemiplegia
2015
Model for an assemblage with photographs and lighting.Wood, metal, paint, magnets, argentic prints, projector.
32 x 13,5 x 7 cm
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5. JUXTAPOISONINGS
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Three places:-Paris -Târgu-Jiu -Rue des Héros, Marseille
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Paris
2016
Model for an assemblage with photographs and lighting.Wood, metal, paint, magnets, argentic prints, projector.
21 x 25 x 8,5 cm
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Târgu-Jiu
2017
Model for an assemblage with photographs and lighting.Wood, metal, paint, magnets, argentic prints, projector.
32 x 13,5 x 16 cm
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Rue des Héros, Marseille
2015
3 argentic prints, including one (following page) with double exposures. Dimensions and presentation to be determined.
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6. TATIANA ≠ ANA
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Four Facts:_ Tatiana Ratchewskaïa died at the age of twenty; Brâncuși created The Kiss in 1910 for her tomb, located at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris._ Brâncuși was a mentor to Carl Andre, who was grounded in the infinite._ Carl Andre never created a tribute piece for Ana Mendieta._ In 2018, Tatiana Ratchewskaïa’s legal successors had a wooden box constructed around the sculpture of The Kiss in the cemetery.
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The Kiss (a Tribute to Ana Mendieta)
2015-2018
Excerpts from13 argentic prints (this page and following page).Dimensions and presentation to be determined.
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The Kiss (a Tribute to Ana Mendieta) 49
[email protected]: 10 rue Saint Luc 75018 Paris
