When Marcel Duchamp shipped Constantin Brancusi's sculpture Bird in Space to Edward Steichen in 1926, New York customs officials refused to accept that it was a work of art, instead levying the standard import tariff for a manufactured object. A legal battle ensued, with the courts eventually declar[...]
Mondrian's relevance has not only to do with his pioneering role in the definition and conceptualisation of abstraction, but also with the complex relationship between his artworks, the space around them and the belief that they were conceived to inspire. His studios in Amsterdam, Paris and New York[...]