THE DAILY PIC (#1687): This 1921 photo, taken in the Impasse Ronsin studio of Constantin Brancusi, shows Brancusi himself and, from left, the Dada poet Tristan Tzara, the photographer Berenice Abbott, the poet Mina Loy, the publisher Jane Heap and the editor Margaret Anderson. The shot is in a wonderful show about the Impasse and its various denizens that is now at Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York.
The Kasmin exhibition makes clear that cutting-edge art in 1920s Paris was very much the product of social connections, much more I think than it is now.
It also makes clear that the connections were an important product of the art, and maybe almost as vital a creation. They were a form of performance and relational art before those categories existed, and because of that they left few traces. The only evidence that they even existed is a few narratives and the occasional, glorious photograph. (©Succession Brancusi — all rights reserved ADAGP, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2016; image courtesy Paul Kasmin Gallery)
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