A Bird Hidden in the Stone?

Romanian-born artist Constantin Brâncuşi at the National Museum of Art

"How can there be a bird hidden in the stone?" children may wonder when entering the exhibition space of Bucharest’s National Museum of Art these days. On June 5, the museum opened e temporary exhibition/project by Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi, under the title "L'oiseau Cache dans la Pierre - Un espace-jeu autour de l'oeuvre de Brancusi" (The Bird Hidden in the Stone - A play space based on the works of Brâncuşi).

The combined exhibition and educational program is designed by France's George Pompidou Center and runs until August 31, 2008. Its presentation in Bucharest is part of its world tour that started in 1995. The show is intended to familiarize children aged 6 to 12 with the creative process of sculpting through simple games inspired by concepts typical in Brâncuşi’s work.

Born in Romania in 1876, Brâncuşi moved to Paris in 1904, where he lived and worked until his death in 1957. His works can now be seen in museums around the world. The artist's intention was to embody a timeless and universal sense of mystery and of the sacred. "Do not look for obscure formulas or mysteries. I give you pure joy. Look at my works until you see them," he has been quoted as saying.

Birds are the theme of 27 of his works. Beginning in 1918, Brâncuşi made a series of four Golden Birds. The bronze surface of Golden Birds (1919), on view at the museum, is highly polished to mirror the surroundings, as Brâncuşi believed that his sculpture should draw in the space around it to be complete. The works' pedestals are made into various geometric shapes which later evolved into hexahedrons that make up his best-known work Endless Column. Hexahedrons are also an important aspect in the educational part of the program.

The Bird in Space series, sculpted between 1923 and 1940, sees the complete abstraction of Brâncuşi’s birds. They have become spindle-like birds without wings and feathers -capturing a bird in flight instead of its body.

The program includes six educational game areas where children can explore the basics of Brâncuşi’s sculptures. "Sculpting with Light" has viewers stand in a dark cubicle with a column composed of a stack of several hexahedrons. They control the light that falls on the column with a panel of buttons. This shows how different lights affects the appearance of the sculpture.

The distortions of their own image in "Magic Mirrors" provides the young participants not only with comic relief but also demonstrates the effects of a number of reflecting surfaces tilting at different angles.

Again employing Brâncuşi’s characteristic geometrical blocks, "Put the Shapes Together" has children pile geometrical blocks into a column, which helps kids to think about spatial relations.

The walls of the game areas are decorated with photos of Brâncuşi’s studio. One shows the white marble of Bird in Space against a dark background reflecting the light in a sharp line. These photos further illustrate the emphasis Brâncuşi put on the interaction between the works and their surroundings.