On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Constantin Brâncuși, the Romanian Cultural Institute in Beijing is organizing a major commemorative program structured around two principal events: the exhibition “Brâncuși’s Birds –The Endless Flight,” open from March 1 to December 31, 2026, at the ICR Beijing headquarters, and the series of three concerts “Brâncuși 150: The Sound of Forms,” performed by violinist Diana Jipa and pianist Ștefan Doniga between March 1–6, 2026, at ICR Beijing, Beijing Dongtu Theater, and the Forlong Auditorium in Chongli.
The exhibition “Brâncuși’s Birds – The Endless Flight” is dedicated to the motif of flight in Brâncuși’s oeuvre and evokes essential cycles such as Măiastra (1910–1918), Bird in Space (1919–1940), Bird in the Air, the autonomous Bird studies, and Golden Bird (1919–1920), works now housed in prestigious international museum collections. Conceived as a hermeneutic journey into the process of formal essentialization, the exhibition analyzes the constitutive structures of Brâncuși’s sculptural language: the reduction of form to archetype, verticality as an ontological axis, the relationship between surface and light, the unity between volume and pedestal, and flight as a conceptual figure of transcendence and continuity. The sculptural form is thus understood as an open dynamic that exceeds the limits of the object and symbolically extends “into the sky, into the pedestal, and into the earth,” as the artist himself stated.
The exhibition structure includes a bilingual (Chinese–English) documentary wall installation integrating: an aesthetic chronology of the artist’s biography; contextualization of the initiation of the “Birds” series within his oeuvre; an enumeration of major works and the museums that host them; an analysis of the legal episode at the Port of New York (the 1926–1928 trial concerning the status of Bird in Space, a defining moment in the recognition of modern sculpture in the United States); reproductions from period press and documentary images; sketches illustrating the process of formal essentialization; as well as references to the commission carried out in the 1930s for Maharajah Yeshwant Rao Holkar of Indore (India), for whom Brâncuși executed two marble versions of the Bird in Space cycle for his palace. The exhibition also addresses the materials favored by the artist (marble, polished bronze, wood), Romanian motifs, and the structural relationship between volume and pedestal.
The opening will take place on March 1, 2026, at 6:00 PM at the ICR Beijing headquarters, preceding the first concert of the anniversary series. The exhibition will remain open until the end of 2026. The project is realized with the support of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and museum specialist Peter Huestis.
The exhibition is complemented by the screening of the documentary “Timi2023 – Brâncuși,” narrated by art historian and critic Doina Lemny, as well as by sculptural interventions created by students of the Faculty of Sculpture at Tsinghua University, a symbolic gesture marking the continuity of Romanian–Chinese artistic dialogue.
In resonance with this visual reflection, the three concerts entitled “Brâncuși 150: The Sound of Forms” propose a musical transposition of Brâncuși’s aesthetic principles, articulating a subtle relationship between sound, volume, and formal architecture. The concerts will be performed by renowned Romanian musicians Diana Jipa (violin) and Ștefan Doniga (piano) in three distinct venues in China: March 1, 2026 – ICR Beijing; March 4, 2026 – Beijing Dongtu Theater; and March 6, 2026 – Auditorium Hall, Forlong Ski Resort, Chongli.
Offering an unexpected perspective on the work of Romania’s most important sculptor, the chosen repertoire represents a distinctive bridge between the visual arts and music, including works by contemporary Romanian composers as well as masterpieces of French and Spanish music. The central piece of the program is “Brâncuși’s Forge,” composed especially by Viorel Munteanu to celebrate the great Romanian modernist sculptor. The concert program also includes: Viorel Munteanu – Brâncuși’s Forge (special interpretation by Diana Jipa & Ștefan Doniga); Francis Poulenc – Suite Le travail du peintre (adaptation for violin and piano by Diana Jipa and Ștefan Doniga); Remus Georgescu – Interlude and Toccatafrom Suite No. II for solo piano; Roman Vlad – Blonde Negress for solo violin (dedicated to Diana Jipa); Jorge Grundman – Warhol in Springtime for violin and piano; Camille Saint-Saëns – Danse Macabre for violin and piano; Dan Dediu – Sphynx and Dragon for violin and piano.
Diana Jipa graduated from the National University of Music in Bucharest with Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees. She made her debut as a soloist at the age of 10 and has since become a constant presence on concert stages in Romania and abroad. In 2005 she represented Romania at the concert marking the signing of the Treaty of Accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union in Brussels. She has performed at major festivals including the XVIIIth edition of the George Enescu International Festival and the VIIth edition of the Paganiniana Festival in Genoa.
Born in Galați in 1979, pianist Ștefan Doniga graduated from the National University of Music in Bucharest in 2002. Throughout his career, he has performed in Romania and in 25 other countries across all six continents. Together with Diana Jipa, he is among the few Romanian musicians to have completed a world tour within a single concert tour. He is the only Romanian pianist to have recorded the complete mazurkas for piano by Alexander Scriabin and has also recorded, in world premiere, Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3 by Sergei Bortkiewicz, released worldwide by Brilliant Classics in 2018 to critical acclaim.
The anniversary events are organized by ICR Beijing to promote Romanian cultural values in China and to mark, through intercultural dialogue, the complex personality of Constantin Brâncuși, whose works revolutionized modern universal sculpture.
