Brancusi at the Neue Nationalgalerie

Brancusi is the major museum exhibition of the season and worth planning around, not just stumbling into. The Neue Nationalgalerie has produced it in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou in Paris — a proper institutional partnership — bringing together a significant body of the Romanian-French sculptor’s work, including pieces rarely seen outside their home collections.

Constantin Brancusi is one of the foundational figures of modernist sculpture, best known for works like The Kiss, Bird in Space, and the Endless Column. His formal reduction of natural forms into elemental shapes influenced generations of artists and designers. Seeing a substantial collection of his work in one place is genuinely different from the small holdings most museums carry.

The Neue Nationalgalerie building — Mies van der Rohe’s steel-and-glass pavilion — is itself worth the visit and provides an interesting architectural conversation with Brancusi’s sculptural concerns. The Kulturforum complex where it sits also has the Gemäldegalerie and the Philharmonie nearby.

Keep it in mind when June weather turns or when you want one serious art anchor rather than a chain of smaller stops. Book tickets online to avoid the front-desk queue, especially on weekends. Dinner in nearby Tiergarten, Schöneberg, or Kreuzberg makes a natural ending to the afternoon.