‘Encountering Sculpture as Image’ is a moving image work that focuses on how Brancusi uses photography within his wider sculptural practice.
Encountering Sculpture as Image, film still
Image Description: close shot of a golden form on a reflexive surface over a wood base
The video incorporates footage of sculptures on display at The KeIle’s Yard House alongside Brancusi’s photographic documentation of his studio and sculptures filmed in the V&A archive. The production of the video piece required Ella McCartney to document, through video, a series of Brancusi’s work, a process that questions the process of documentation itself. ’Encountering Sculpture as Image” uses visual and audio techniques to reflect on the processes Brancusi uses within his practice; specifically referencing his approach to the possible limits of what can be referred to as ‘documentation’. The video includes a spoken narrative that explores forms of visual translation used by Brancusi and the wider context of documentation in contemporary practice. The shifting state of Brancusi’s works (as solid objects, captured through photography and printed as images) informed the approach I took to making the moving image work. There are repeating images shown in various states such as a reproduced image that is frozen as a solid block of ice that melts throughout the duration of the film.
Encountering Sculpture as Image, film still
Image Description: close-up of a black and white print of a sculpture over a golden reflexive surface
To research this topic I visited Brancusi’s retrospective at The Pompidou Centre in 2024 as well as visiting the collection of Brancusi’s photographic prints that are stored in the V&A Archive. I documented the works on display at The KeIle’s Yard House, Cambridge as well as collecting aural histories of the work from the Curators and Visiting Assistant staff.
A sculpture can be seen from multiple perspectives, we can walk around it, it has a physical relationship to our own bodies, the light interacts with the surface as we move. Photographic representation of Brancusi’s sculpture disrupts this form of encounter. Responding to Brancusi’s oeuvre which includes multiple experimentations of visual translations between his sculpture and image-making, ‘Encountering Sculpture as Image’ explores how Brancusi’s work disrupts ideas of ‘documentation’ and offers a new way to approach his wider practice as well as the potential within the material of both the photograph and sculpture.
Encountering Sculpture as Image, film still
Image Description: close-up of black and white photographs
A soundtrack was produced for the video that was edited with a recorded spoken narrative. The sound element gradually transforms throughout the duration of the work. One of the repeating motifs was selected from a vinyl collection that belonged in Brancusi’s studio in Paris.
The video work was produced in 2024 for The Henry Moore Institute for the season ‘Modern Sculpture, Essence and Difference: Reflections on the Work of Constantin Brâncuşi. The topic was selected in relation to the large retrospective of Brancusi at the Centre Pompidou, Paris.
In 2024 a symposium was held at The Courtauld Institute of Art where ‘Encountering Sculpture as Image’ was screened and Ella McCartney spoke as part of a panel discussion alongside Stefano Agresti, chaired by Dr Lisa Newby.
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Ella McCartney (Lecturer in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths) is a visual artist based in the UK. She graduated from The Royal Academy Schools in 2011 and Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2008. Recent exhibitions and projects include Modern Sculpture, Essence and Difference: Reflections on the Work of Constantin Brancusi, led by the Henry Moore Foundation at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London (2024) The Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge (2024), Shaping Objects, Alma Space, UK (2023), Space, XVIIX Programme (2021), Movement as Dialogue, The University of Hong Kong (2019), Forms of Address, Laure Genillard Gallery, London (2019).참여작가, CICA Museum, South Korea (2018)The sound of running water is completely normal, Lily Brooke, London (2018)To Act To Know To Be, Birmingham University (2018) Ella McCartney, Nomadic Vitrine, Birmingham (2018) Watery Fluid, Here East, London (2018) Ella was awarded The Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence award in 2016.
selected publications:
Translating across Sensory and Linguistic Borders: Intersemiotic Journeys between Media, (2019) Ed. Dr Madeleine Campbell and Dr Ricarda Vidal, (London: Palgrave and McMillian)
It was just too much: Exploring the learner’s experience in Fine Art crits. (2018) co-written with Dr.Lake, Learning and Teaching in Action, Manchester Metropolitan University
A Visual Turn in Translanguaging? (2017)Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities, with Professor Zhu Hua
Player’s Ball, Arena Homme+, Ella McCartney interviewing Peter Doig and Markus Lupertz, May 2014
