Bird in space (1928 variant)

Mediums: polished bronze.
Location: The Museum of Modern Art in New York (the USA).

When this work was brought into the United States for an “arms” exhibition, customs officers refused to consider it as a work of art and called it a “household item”. The artist had to pay a fee, while fees should not be taken for works of art. At the court (the outraged author filed a lawsuit), members of the National Academy, who stood for traditional methods, insisted that the attempt to consider the “Bird in Space” as an object of art was a scam because it had no head, no feathers, no legs. Interestingly, the judge gave the final assessment, “the thing can be considered a sculpture due to its symmetrical forms, the artistry of the contour and the beauty of the facing.” At Christie’s, the work was sold for $ 27.4 million almost 100 years after the creation of the first copy.