Film screening and Q&A
Artists’ Journey: Tony Cragg on Constantin Brâncuşi
18:00–19:30
Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds
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About this event
Join us for a unique opportunity to see the film Artists’ Journey: Tony Cragg on Constantin Brâncuşi (BBC, 1992) in the beautiful surroundings of one of the UK’s oldest cinemas, the Hyde Park Picture House.
We’ll be joined by the documentary’s producer, Bruno Wollheim and Brâncuşi specialist, Dr Jonathan Vernon, who will introduce the film and follow it with a conversation and Q&A.
The film
Tony Cragg on Constantin Brâncuşi follows sculptor Tony Cragg to Romania and Brâncuşi’s childhood village, searching for the spaces that incited Brâncuşi to move away from the utilitarian uses of wood and explore form instead.
After rediscovering Brâncuşi’s peasant roots, Cragg then shadows Brâncuşi’s journey to Paris, New York and finally back to Romania where he visits Târgu Jiu. Here Cragg encounters several of Brâncuşi’s pieces: The Table of Silence, The Gate of the Kiss and The Endless Column, considered one of modern art’s most iconic monuments.
Tony Cragg is an Anglo-German sculptor, born in the UK and resident in Germany since 1977. His early work involved site-specific arrangements of found objects and discarded materials. In 1988 Cragg represented Britain at the 43rd Venice Biennale, and won the Turner Prize the same year. Cragg was knighted in 2016 for his service to the visual arts and Anglo-German relations.
Tickets
Tickets for this film screening are free, and can be booked online via The Hyde Park Picture House.
About the speakers
Bruno Wollheim
Bruno Wollheim is an independent documentary film-maker. He trained as an art historian at UCL London and Harvard Graduate School. He has worked on many Channel4 and the BBC programmes, including two award-winning films on David Hockney. The subject of his most recent film Path to the Absolute is the eminent modern art historian John Golding, focusing on his career as an abstract painter.
Jonathan Vernon
Dr Jonathan Vernon is an art historian who has studied the work and reception of Constantin Brâncuşi for ten years. His PhD thesis (The Courtauld Institute of Art, 2019) studied how Brâncuşi’s work was written into American, Western European, and Romanian art histories and reinterpreted by sculptors after the artist’s death in 1957.
In 2020-21 Jonathan was a Leonard A. Lauder Postdoctoral Fellow at the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He has also served as an Associate Lecturer at The Courtauld (2018-19, 2022-23) and Ridinghouse Contributing Editor at The Burlington Magazine (2014-17). Jonathan’s research has been supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Henry Moore Institute and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
His published works include a monograph on Amedeo Modigliani for Tate, an exhibition catalogue on British sculpture since the 1960s for Karsten Schubert Gallery and contributions to the catalogue published alongside Centre Pompidou’s Brâncuşi retrospective this year. He is currently working on a manuscript that asks what the idea of the fragment has meant to modern history, culture and politics since 1945.
Brâncuşi and Britain
Spring & Summer 2024
This Research Season encourages scholars and practising artists to reconsider Constantin Brâncuşi (1876-1957) and his impact amongst British artists, writers, and thinkers.
Getting here
Hyde Park Picture House
73 Brudenell Road
Leeds
LS6 1JD
United Kingdom
T: 0113 275 2045
E: info@HPPH.co.uk