[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-11.08.26-AM.png?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tFive days before a trove of 16 masterpieces from the late media magnate S.I. Newhouse is set to hit the block as part of Christie\u2019s New York evening sales, the auction house has released a two-minute video promoting one particular sculpture in the sale. <\/p>\n
\n\tThe short film, as Christie\u2019s refers to it, was filmed in early May and features none other than Academy Award\u2013winning actress Nicole Kidman starring alongside Constantin Brancusi\u2019s bronze sculpture\u00a0Dana\u00efde<\/em>\u00a0(1913). The sculpture, expected to be one of the top lots this season, carries a pre-sale estimate of $100 million, well above the artist\u2019s $71.2 million record, though below the three most-expensive sculptures ever sold at auction, all by Alberto Giacometti.<\/p>\n \n\tAccording to a Christie\u2019s spokesperson, the concept for the video was inspired by a Man Ray film of Lee Miller uncovering Brancusi\u2019s controversial sculpture Madame X<\/em>. (The film, and a marble version of the sculpture, are included in the Brancusi retrospective currently on view at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.)<\/p>\n \n\tIn the Christie\u2019s video, Kidman is on the phone as she strides into \u201cRock Center,\u201d where the auction house\u2019s headquarters are located and where works from the upcoming sales are on view before they hit the block. She tells the person on the other end to \u201ctell them it can wait. I\u2019m not pushing this.\u201d Cue David Bowie\u2019s 1975 track \u201cGolden Years,\u201d as Kidman confronts Dana\u00efde<\/em>\u00a0on a white pedestal in an empty room enclosed by a circular wall of curtains. The click of Kidman\u2019s heels echo in the empty room as she circumnavigates the patinaed bronze sculpture, almost in a trance. Archival black-and-white photos tracing the history of sculpture\u2014both works that inspired Brancusi along with those influenced by him\u2014flash on the screen before the music picks back up.<\/p>\n \n\tKidman dances around the sculpture to \u201cGolden Years\u201d in a way that would definitely get any other visitor swiftly reprimanded. She even traces her finger, noticeably not in a white glove, which anyone coming into contact with the work would be required to wear, around the edge of the pedestal while looking at Dana\u00efde<\/em>\u00a0seductively. Back on the phone, she tells her confidante that she doesn\u2019t think she\u2019s going to make it (where, one wonders) and that she needs \u201ca little more time.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe\u2019ll have until at least May 18, when Dana\u00efde<\/em>\u2014along with works by Picasso, Pollock, Matisse, Rothko, and other giants of modern art from the Newhouse collection\u2014are expected to bring in some $450 million.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/market\/nicole-kidman-christies-video-brancusi-si-newhouse-sale-1234785474\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-14-at-11.08.26-AM.png?w=1024″] Five days before a trove of 16 masterpieces from the late media magnate S.I. Newhouse is set to hit the block as part of Christie\u2019s New York evening sales, the auction house has released a two-minute video promoting one particular sculpture in the sale. The short film, as Christie\u2019s refers to it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1936471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1936471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1936471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1936471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1936471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}