Twenty-nine years old. This is the number of years that opposes this major retrospective to the one and only French exhibition on Constantin Brâncuși. It was therefore time to make up for lost time and to further lift the veil on the revolutionary work of this passing student of Auguste Rodin who disputes – irony of History – the title of father of modern sculpture with his former master . Less known than his illustrious elder, the Romanian artist only served in his studio for a short month before finally slamming the door because “ nothing grows in the shade of large trees”. Good pick ! Brâncuși extricates himself from the overwhelming shadow of Rodin, approaches the avant-gardes such as Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger and Amedeo Modigliani to constitute a new minimalist language. A page in the history of art that the Centre Pompidou manages to transcribe to perfection thanks to the historic gathering of 200 sculptures, drawings, letters and photographs by a true artisan of the material. Structured around a partial reconstruction of his workshop, the exhibition compares the plasters with the original models in stone or bronze, thus placing the sculptor's work in its rightful place in an absolute quest for purity.

Did you know?
It’s a misunderstanding that changed art history. Back in the 1920s. Faced with an abstract sculpture by Brâncuși, American customs wonder: is it a common piece of metal or a work of art? A historic trial and an intervention by the king of the ready-made Marcel Duchamp later, the artist won his case and participated in the recognition of a new legal definition of art.