| CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI | ||
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Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) was born in rural Romania. After several attempts to run away from home, he left for good at the age of 11, supporting himself working for a cooper, a dyer and as a waiter. Brancusi studied art, first in his spare time, then with the help of grants in Craiova and Bucharest. In 1904, a modest grant financed his trip to Paris, where he was to live and work until the end of his life.
Very quickly, he received public attention, obtained financial help and became friends with Matisse, Léger, Modigliani and Rousseau. Although initially attracted to Rodin’s work, he soon made a point of exploring different artistic tracks. Following his contemporaries’ quest for “significant forms,” he simplified his figures to the point of abstraction, working in a variety of media, including marble, limestone, bronze and wood. Today, Brancusi is widely recognized as a central figure in twentieth century art. His work helped establish modernist concepts of form and abstraction. As a result of an encounter with Man Ray, Brancusi employed photography as an art form to describe how he perceived his sculptures and his studio in which he worked and lived. Upon his death in 1957, Brancusi left the contents of his studio to the Museum of Art of the City of Paris under the condition that the studio be recreated in the museum in its entirety, which has been achieved at the Centre Georges Pompidou. | |
| RICHARD SERRA | ||
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Richard Serra was born in San Francisco in 1939. After studying at the University of California at Berkeley and at Santa Barbara, he graduated in 1961 with a BS in English Literature. During this time, he began working in steel mills in order to support himself. In 1964, he received graduate degrees from Yale University.
With a traveling fellowship from Yale, Serra spent two years in Europe. After returning to New York, his work questioned traditionally held concepts of sculpture, and employed media such as rubber, lead, neon and materials from derelict buildings. He challenged the vertical nature of most previous sculpture by scattering pieces on the floor (such as Cutting Device: Base Plate Measure, shown in the Pulitzer’s Serra exhibition in 2003-2004), and used the juncture of floor and walls as a mold for lead casting. Serra also created a variety of prop pieces, where he stacked rubber, lead and steel against walls, thereby implicating the surrounding architecture as an integral component of his sculpture. As his work increased in size and scale, the physical relationship between viewer, sculpture and site became more complex. In addition to innovations in sculpture, he has also taken the medium of drawing in entirely new directions. Serra uses drawing as a way to explore ideas that are evolving in his sculpture and to respond to his completed works. Serra lives in New York and Nova Scotia. | |
| TADAO ANDO | ||
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Tadao Ando was born in 1941 in Osaka, Japan. The self-taught architect was awarded the Pritzker Prize in Architecture in 1995 for “consistent and significant contributions to the built environment.” His work includes such diverse structures as private residences, museums, places of worship and commercial buildings. Ando’s trademark is the smooth, clean, finely crafted concrete walls that comprise his structures and his sensitive use of site whether urban or rural. The effects of light, water, trees and greenery form an integral part of his buildings.
Some of his major commissions include the Church of Light, Ibaraki (1989), the Japanese Pavilion for Expo 92 in Seville, and the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum (1992). In the United States, Ando has also designed the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, which opened in 2002, and an Asian Gallery in the Art Institute of Chicago. Ando continues to live and work in Osaka, Japan. |
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