Descending Ashtray

In one of my many experiments on the now-all-but-abandoned DaveSelden.com, I had a somewhat regularly occurring feature I called “Studio Visits,” where I documented visits I made to other artists’ studios, with lots of photos and minimal text. Other artists’ workspaces are usually so private, and it’s interesting to see how the setup differs based on personality and end product.

On my recent European vacation, I had the opportunity to re-visit the studio of Constantin Brancusi, a favorite sculptor. In 1956, rather than see his beloved space demolished in the name of a construction project, he donated its contents to the city of Paris to be recreated elsewhere. In his later years, Brancusi believed the perfect venue for experiencing his works was his studio, where each object was carefully positioned with respect to other objects, optimal lighting conditions and physical needs of the viewer.

In the ensuing years, the studio was recreated in various forms, all to some degree temporary, but in 1977 the studio received a final resting place at the Centre Pompidou in front of Paris’ Museum of Modern Art. A building designed by architect Renzo Piano references the original studio heavily, respecting the artist’s wishes as to placement of works and lighting conditions, but maintaining a safe distance between the visitor and the valuable original artworks it now contains.

Something I have been thinking about lately, and something that I noticed in Brancusi’s work (as well as in the Louise Bourgeouis retrospective inside) was the care and attention Brancusi gave to the pedestals for his pieces. In many ways the pedestal was so integrated with the sculpture, it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

And of course, there were the tools, laid out in neat order as he left them. They were the only evidence that this was a studio, really, so clean was the floor and so white the walls, you’d think you were simply in a strange museum. Artifacts of his life were there if you looked, though, including a violin on a bench at the rear of this photo, apparently for the impromptu parties that were often thrown here (Max Ernst and Jean Tinguely had adjacent studios). His sleeping quarters were in the raised area above.