Fish 1930

Constantin Brâncuși made "Fish" out of blue-gray marble. It's here at MoMA, silently doing its thing. I love how Brâncuși coaxes simplicity out of solid rock, a slow, considered way of making. The stone has its own voice; you can see the grain like the lines of a landscape or a kind of frozen sea. It's so smooth, polished, and cool to the eye, like the skin of a fish. The form is reduced to its essence. You could almost miss it – a simple oval, balanced on a cylindrical base. That balancing act is what gets me. It's so precarious, so alive. It makes me think of other artists who find the sublime in reduction, like Agnes Martin or even some of the early minimalists. "Fish" isn't just an object; it’s a moment of pure being, caught in stone. It seems both ancient and utterly contemporary.