Modern Sculpture Research Articles

The Theory of Direct Carving in Modern Sculpture

Journal Article The Theory of Direct Carving in Modern Sculpture Get access JUDITH ZILCZER JUDITH ZILCZER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Oxford Art Journal, Volume 4, Issue 2, November 1981, Pages 44–49, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxartj/4.2.44 Published: 01 November 1981

Terminal Iron Works: The Sculpture of David Smith

don't touch, I touch with the eye--David SmithRosalind Krauss believes that the body of work produced by David Smith over the past three decades constitutes the most important sculptural achievement of this century. This book characterizes his work in a way that will make the reader see it on the grounds of its own intense originality. Several arguments are developed simultaneously in the text: an historical description of Smith's career which shows how, from the beginning, his art departed from the conventional concepts and criticized the essential conservatism of modern sculpture--whether the welded work of Picasso and Gonzalez or the constructivism of Gabo or the surrealism of Giacometti; an explicit analysis of a few of Smith's greatest works indicating that his stylistic ambitions were consistent throughout his career; and an iconographic explanation of the nature of Smith's imagery (the cannon, the totem, the sacrifice) as he insistently repeated it. Documentary evidence garnered from the sculptor's archive of sketchbooks and personal records supports this last argument.Dr. Krauss tracks the content of Smith's style back through the labyrinth of his development and examines the formal alternatives he found to 20th century sculpture--indicating that it was his ambition to completely restructure the relationship between the viewer and the single work of art. The book's basic supposition is that, by a variety of means, David Smith made sculpture that would defeat the viewer's attempt to possess it, either physically or intellectually; he created a sculptural language that arrogantly refuted possession, by touch or by theory of style. Indeed, the author asserts that a real understanding of Smith's sculpture will show that he did not, as his critics have said, predicate his work on a transformation of European art styles, or on characteristics of American abstract painting. His was a revolt from the historical community of ideas, from the concept of a volumetric core and a strict interpretation of media.The book acknowledges the man behind his self-created myth of vulcan, the welder-hero, to see how and at what level Smith's formal convictions intersected private sources of feeling. It covers his work from the first private, highly subjective pieces which lacked an organizing spine, to the large public sculptures which were formalized in related series (the Tanktotems, Zigs, and huge stainless steel cubes, discs, cylinders and bar that made up the Cubis).David Smith's work speaks for itself. Nearly 150 halftones complement Dr. Kreuss' compelling text: photographs of Smith's sculpture taken by the artist, illustrations of works that influenced him, and drawings from the Smith Archive.

Passages in Modern Sculpture

This book contains seven art historical essays by Krauss, which examine major works of 19th and 20th century sculpture. She employs a critical methodology informed by phenomenology, structural linguistics, and psychoanalytic theory, to works produced within a modern context. Emphasis is placed on the topics of space, time, narrative, vitalism, totemism, light, motion, and theatricality. Includes name and subject index. Biographical notes on author. 167 bibl. ref.

Albert E. Elsen,Origins of Modern Sculpture: Pioneers and Premises

Albert E. Elsen,<i>Origins of Modern Sculpture: Pioneers and Premises</i>

Origins of Modern Sculpture: Pioneers and Premises

What is sculpture's primordial nature, its essence, and how should it be redefined? Should sculpture serve society? Why not objects, rather than the human figure, as sculpture's subject? How and what do we see? Why the pedestal? What determines proportion? How can sculpture be meaningfully united with the real world of objects? These were only a few of the questions being asked after 1905questions that led to the revolutionary premises of modern sculpture. In this work, Elsen explores the radical changes that transformed sculpture between roughly 1890 and 1918, signaling the emergence of modern sculpture. He demonstrates how Rodin and his younger venturesome contemporaries changed the look and focus of sculpture, thereby initiating its continual process of redefinition. The result is a fascinating and thought-provoking book. 168 black-and-white illustrations.

On Mark di Suvero: Sculpture Outside! Walls

The six steel works executed by the American sculptor Mark di Suvero in the factories of Chalon-sur-Saone during 1972–73 and exhibited in public outdoor areas of Chalon in 1973–74 constituted a unique event in the history of modern sculpture. In many respects the fulfillment of the aspirations of generations of avant-garde artists who desired to escape the confining context of the museum, they reclaim their function as public symbols within a social context. Special circumstances prevailed in Chalon to make possible di Suvero's realization of these monumental, Herculean sculptures: the belief in di Suvero's vision on the part of Marcel Evrard, director of the CRACAP in Le Creusot, as well as the enthusiasm and support of the staff of the Maison de la Culture in Chalon, together with the generosity of local industry, the participation of local workers, and the interest of the people of Chalon—all were necessary to the fruition of this unusual cooperative venture.

The Artistic Collaboration of Pablo Picasso and Julio Gonzalez

In 1928, Pablo Picasso and Julio Gonzalez began working together on a series of assembled iron constructions which we now consider crucial to the development of modern sculpture. Picasso had not done any sculpture of importance for some 15 years, and Gonzalez had created no significant art at all. The consequences of this collaboration go far beyond the modest number of sculptures—some ten constructions and assemblages—which they completed over a period of four years. It had an enduring effect on both Picasso and Gonzalez, and the work they produced was decisive for David Smith, Eduardo Chillida, Anthony Caro, and numerous other sculptors working since the Second World War.

Early Modern Sculpture

Early Modern Sculpture

The Reclining Figure and the Development of Modern Sculpture

The Reclining Figure and the Development of Modern Sculpture

Form and Space of the Modern Sculpture

Form and Space of the Modern Sculpture

Sculptors of the 1940s

With the exception of a few major figures, modern sculpture, particularly from 1930 to 1960, has not fared well in its critical and historical treatment to date. The reasons are numerous, but begin with the fact that we simply do not see enough sculpture, and thus to a great extent its development has remained hidden. Predictably enough, lack of access to the work has brought about a history that abounds with cliches and generalities. Thus for those seriously concerned with the evolution of post-World War II sculpture, the exhibition 19 Sculptors of the 40s, organized last spring by Phyllis Pious, curator of exhibitions for the Art Galleries at the University of California, Santa Barbara, offered a rare opportunity to focus on a complex and still little known period.

What Is Modern Sculpture?

What Is Modern Sculpture?

Modernism and Postmodernism: Approaching the Present in American Poetry

A few years ago Roy Lichtenstein completed a group of works called the Modern series. The paintings -there were sculptures too, aptly labeled Modern Sculpture -were mainly representations of Art Deco settings, groups of recognizable abstract forms derived primarily from circles and triangles, situated in a shallow virtual space, derived from a late and academic Cubism, and treated to Lichtenstein's typical, simulated BenDay dot manner in uninflected shades of blue, red, yellow, black and white, and sometimes green. The paintings were amusing. It was absurd to see the high art styles of the early twenties and the advanced decorative and architectural styles of the later twenties and early thirties through the screen of a comic strip. It was also appropriate, since these design elements found their way into the backgrounds of Buck Rogers and the lobby of the Radio City Music Hall. At the same time there was something pathetic and slightly unnerving in this treatment of the style features that had long appeared as the claims to of Futurism, Purism, Constructivism, and the Bauhaus. What is particularly unnerving about the series is what is most relevant to the subject of modernism versus postmodernism. Clearly the sense that such a thing as a postmodern sensibility exists and should be defined is wrapped up with the conviction that what we have called modern for so long is thoroughly over. If we are capable of imagining the modern as a closed set of stylistic features, modern can no longer mean present. For it is precisely the distinctive feature of

Casa en Feock, Cornwall - Gran Bretaña

This project seeks to integrate the house as much as possible with the surrounding landscape. From its interior there is an excellent view of the beautiful countryside, and the inside distribution provides facilities for exhibiting a fine collection of painting and modern sculpture, as well as a large number of books, possessed by the house owners. This building is designed round two main axes. One leads from the road and parking site, across a bridge, to the main gate; whilst the other coincides with a broad gallery, which besides connecting all the rooms, serves for the exhibition of the painting and sculptures mentioned previously.

Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This Century

Burnham's examination of modern sculpture centers on the changing status of the art objects in a system-oriented culture. References are made to Marx's concept of reification and Jungian psychology to show how science and technology are responsible for sculpture's material and psychic break with the past. Topics such as vitalism, formalism, phenomenalism, automata, kineticism, light art and cybernetics are considered in light of the coercive nature of technics. Index of names. 460 bibl. ref.

A Painter's Plastic Sculpture

Eugene Massin has had a long career as a painter; trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, Pacific-Combat artist, apprentice to Sigueiros in Mexico, teacher at the University of Wisconsin, and for the last fifteen years at the University of Miami. He is a figure painter, with traces of the influence of Sigueiros, a billiant draftsman. Four years ago with the help of a University grant he began experimenting with molded plastic and recently had a one-man show of this new kind of sculpture which Miss Busch describes. Julia Busch is a graduate student in art history with a minor in sculpture at the University of Miami, her masters thesis, predictably, being “Technological Influences in Modern Sculpture.” She is Massin's shop assistant.—Editor.

Notes on Jack Burnham's Concepts of a Software Exhibition

Jack Burnham has been receiving, in my view, the recognition he deserves for his efforts to draw attention to the impact of cybernetics, general systems theory and computers on contemporary art. My own respect for Burnham is attested to by references to his book, Beyond Modern Sculpture, in my article 'Computer Sculpture: Six Levels of Cybernetics', Artforum (May 1969) and by my discussion of his work at a session of the International Cybernetics Congress held in London in September 1969. Recently, in a communication to the New York Review, Burnham defined his central premise as '... we are moving from an art centered upon objects to one focused upon systems, thus implying that sculptured objects are in eclipse'. In a statement explaining the scope of a 'Software' exhibition he has proposed for the Jewish Museum in New York (tentatively scheduled for late spring, 1970), he made his point even more explicitly by writing 'If the Software exhibit is to be successful in emphasizing the nature of electronically supported software, it should then remove the traditional hardware props of art from the eye of the viewer, mainly those vestiges of painting and sculpture'. In this same statement he defined electronically supported software as 'radio, telephone, telephone photocopying, television, microcard library information systems, teletype and teaching machines'. These quotes make clear what Burnham means by software, though, to my knowledge, he has yet to define precisely what he means by 'systems art', except in the negative sense of repudiating the sculptural object. One can only surmise that his thinking accords more with what we have come to know as 'concept art' and related tendencies, rather than with cybernetics and general systems theory. What he has done in fact, is draw upon the prestige of these disciplines (and some of the vocabulary) to blur the distinction between art as a particular kind of immediate, sensory experience and the process of dealing with it on various levels of abstractionapparently failing to realize that in both cybernetics and general systems theory it is normal to distinguish between the abstract model and the real-world system it is intended to represent. Burnham's more puzzling mistake, however, lies in his gross misunderstanding of the word software,

The Evolution of Modern Sculpture, Tradition and Innovation

The Evolution of Modern Sculpture, Tradition and Innovation

Modern Sculpture in Soap

Modern Sculpture in Soap

Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This Century

Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This Century