Parigi, 12 gennaio 2026 – L’evento inaugurale, Riflessioni su Brancusi – Arte e Design, riunirà dunque creazioni contemporanee attorno a una selezione di fotografie iconiche di Grigorescu, rivelando una rete di corrispondenze formali, materiali e sensoriali.
GRIGORESCU E BRANCUSI
Artista autodidatta, la cui sensibilità artistica si è formata grazie a numerosi incontri, nel suo approccio all’opera di Brancusi il Grigorescu ha sviluppato uno sguardo che è al tempo stesso delicato ed esigente. Profondamente affascinato dalle sculture del maestro, evitando tuttavia intenzionalmente qualsiasi forma di illustrazione, tra il 1964 e il 1967 si è dedicato a una serie di studi fotografici di notevole profondità. Le sculture di Brancusi sono divenute le sue fonti di ispirazione privilegiate, quasi muse. Presenze sovrane che osservava con estrema moderazione, fotografandole in sequenza sotto luci mutevoli e in diversi momenti della giornata, prestandovi un’attenzione ai limiti della meditazione.
LA TENSIONE IN IMMAGINI DI OPERE
Le sue fotografie, immagini definite da contrasti drammatici e da un nero profondo che isola ogni forma dall’ambiente circostante, rendono alle sculture la loro purezza essenziale rivelando tensioni interne, luce condensata, silenzio e una geometria viva. Le dimensioni che sono al centro stesso dell’opera di Brancusi. Questa prospettiva, che riecheggia la distanza analitica che caratterizza lo scultore medesimo nel fotografare le sue opere, costituisce dunque il filo conduttore del ciclo espositivo, illuminando il potere duraturo di un’eredità artistica che non cessa di alimentare la creazione contemporanea.
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Inaugural Exhibition of the Reflections on Brancusi Art et Design: 16 January – 18 April 2026 Galerie Negropontes Paris – In 2026, to mark the 150th anniversary of Constantin Brancusi’s birth, Galerie Negropontes inaugurates a new exhibition cycle, Reflections on Brancusi, presented across two exhibitions in Paris and one in Venice. The cycle offers a contemporary reinterpretation of the sculptor’s world, establishing a dialogue between the works of the gallery’s artists and designers and the photographs of Dan Er. Grigorescu. The inaugural exhibition, Reflections on Brancusi – Art and Design, brings together contemporary creations around a selection of Grigorescu’s iconic photographs, revealing a network of formal, material, and sensorial correspondences.
Dan Er. Grigorescu, Endless Columns II. Prints on Hahnemühle Baryta paper, 47 × 70 cm, 60 × 83 cm framed, limited edition
Dan Er. Grigorescu, Torso. Prints on Hahnemühle Baryta paper, 47 × 70 cm, 60 × 83 cm framed, limited edition
A self-taught photographer whose artistic sensibility was shaped through numerous encounters, Grigorescu developed a gaze that is at once delicate and exacting in his approach to Brancusi’s oeuvre. Deeply fascinated by the master’s sculptures – yet intentionally avoiding any form of illustration – he devoted himself between 1964 and 1967 to a series of photographic studies of remarkable depth. For Grigorescu, Brancusi’s sculptures became privileged sources of inspiration, almost muses: sovereign presences that he observed with extreme restraint, photographing them sequentially, under shifting lights and at varying times of day, with an almost meditative attentiveness. His photographs, defined by dramatic contrasts and a profound black that isolates each form from its surroundings, restore the sculptures to their essential purity. They reveal internal tensions, condensed light, silence, and a living geometry – dimensions at the very core of Brancusi’s work. This perspective, echoing the analytical distance the sculptor himself adopted when photographing his pieces, forms the guiding thread of the exhibition cycle, illuminating the enduring power of an artistic legacy that continues to nourish contemporary creation. The photograph of Mademoiselle Pogany – an emblematic visage distilled to its pure luminous essence, its polished curves exalting the softness of form – finds a natural echo in Gianluca Pacchioni’s onyx coffee table, whose sculptural silhouette extends the elegance and continuity of these refined lines.
Dan Er. Grigorescu, Mademoiselle Pogany, 1967, 47 × 70 cm, 60 × 60 cm framed, limited edition. Prints on Hahnemühle Baryta paper
Gianluca Pacchioni, Under The Sheets I, 2023. Patinated brass, glass, white Nyx. H 82 × W 200 × D 80 cm
Les Fruits étranges by Perrin & Perrin, with their polished, tightly composed volumes, capture light in much the same way as Pogany’s contours, revealing an evident kinship of line and form. Claudia Campone’s Gesto side table for Serafini, sculpted in lava stone, similarly enters into dialogue with Pogany. Its rounded volumes, animated by a subtle torsion, lend the stone an unexpected dynamism and evoke a distinct sense of presence. The Muse mirror by Hervé Langlais brings this ensemble to completion. With its elongated oval form and polished surface, it subtly recalls La Muse endormie (The Sleeping Muse), transposing the purity of Brancusi’s curves and the figure’s serene presence into a contemporary idiom. Brancusi, in choosing his wood blocks, perceived the sculpture’s presence in advance – already latent in the nature of the material. This intuitive rapport with the block resonates with the practice of Mauro Mori, whose works emerge from meticulously selected Albizia wood, as though the form pre-existed within it in potentia. His Cuddle Long bench, carved from a single mass, unfolds in a generous, continuous line whose curvature imbues the piece with an organic, almost inviting presence.
Mauro Mori, Cuddle Long, 2024. Albizia wood, H 60 x L 230 x P 68 cm, limited edition of 8 copies
The photograph of Le Baiser (The Kiss), a quasi-archaic sculpture that captures the fusion of two intertwined bodies, finds a natural resonance in the three patinated bronzes by Perrin & Perrin, whose dense forms and unified volumes extend this notion of contained, internal tension. This same energy is echoed in the Untitled tapestry by Pinton, based on a cartoon by Pierre Dimitrienko, where enveloping shapes and near monochrome tones translate the intensity of Le Baiser into a vibrant textile medium. The correspondence is further enriched by Scudo, a pair of pure, minimalist black-and-white sculptures by Mauro Mori, which bring the dialogue to a poised and distilled conclusion.
Mauro Mori, Scudo White and Scudo Black, 2006. Belgian black marble and Calacatta marble, H 45 × W 28 × D 16 cm, limited edition of 8 copies
Dan Er. Grigorescu, Le Baiser. Prints on Hahnemühle Baryta paper, 47 × 47 cm, 60 × 60 cm framed, limited edition
Fôret intérieure (Inner Forest) likewise composes a duo in which two distinct elements appear to merge into a single presence. Conceived by Julien Gorrias, cut and then charred by Bertrand Lacourt, and accompanied by the crystal shaped by Servane Blat within the M2 College, the work draws upon the Forest of Fontainebleau, its remarkable trees, its prehistoric engravings, its veiled light, to summon a presence that feels almost archaic. Its pared-down silhouette and deliberate minimalism reveal a relationship to material reminiscent of Brancusi, master of selecting and sublimating wood. “Is wood not already ready to become a work? One need only cut it just enough to make it a sculpture,” he declared; Inner Forest seems to respond directly to this intuition. Through the quiet restraint of its curves and the grounded strength of its stance, the duo allows the sculpture already held within the material to surface, resonating with the silent unity captured in Le baiser.
Venezia, Canal Grande: Palazzina Masieri, Galerie Negropontes
The photograph of The Torso reveals an essential verticality – a form distilled to its purest essence. In response, the Ciel et Terre mirror by Hervé Langlais, composed of polished brass sheets poised on a cone of burnt oak, seems to rise toward the sky while remaining firmly rooted in the earth. This gesture of elevation echoes the upward momentum that runs through Brancusi’s work – from L’Oiseau dans l’espace (Bird in Space) to Le Coq – where geometry is transfigured into movement. The ceramics by Linda Ouhbi extend this dialogue. Their softly curved silhouettes emerge from the same formal reduction: the vertical line and the subtle curve are sufficient to suggest an almost corporeal presence.
Julien Gorrias, Inner Forest, 2025. Burnt oak and crystal
Finally, the photographs of La Colonne sans fin (Endless Column), which Grigorescu captured from multiple viewpoints and under shifting lights, reveal the inexhaustible vitality of a simple form whose repetition generates an ever-renewed presence. Mauro Mori’s sculptures Piramidone and Piramidi respond naturally to this dynamic. Carved from solid wood, their faceted geometries echo the logic of the module and the vertical impulse, inhabiting a space of tension between geometric rigor and subtle organic inflection.
Linda Ouhbi, Untitled 19/2025. Glazed stoneware ceramic, H 27 × 12 × 10 cm, H 28 × 11 × 10 cm
Hervé Langlais, Ciel et Terre. Burnt wood, mirror in polished brass, H 210 x L 60 x P 45 cm, 2014
INFO
Inaugural Exhibition of the Reflections on Brancusi
Art et Design
16 January – 18 April 2026
Vernissage on Friday, January 16, from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Galerie Negropontes Paris
14-16 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau
75001 Paris, France
