Mariken Kramer, Muscle, Beefsteak…Beefsteak Run Amok, 2021

The book is a playful investigation of sculptural form, materiality, and content. The project is motivated by Kramer’s position as an educator at the National Museum in Oslo, where among other things she mediated sculpture to children and youth. The title is borrowed from a quote attributed to Constantin Brancusi, supposedly describing Michelangelo’s sculptures to a journalist in 1925: “Michelangelo’s sculpture is nothing but muscle, beefsteak, beefsteak run amok.” With his radical attitude toward art history and via his inquisitive and individual approach to the artistic process, Brancusi contributed to broadening the limits of how art could be experienced.