chapter 11
DESCRIPTION
Revised - April 2013TRANSCRIPT
Chapter 11Sculpture and Installation
Sculpture
Maman, Louise Bourgeois, 1999, Bronze, steel and marble, St. Petersburg, Russia
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bourgeois-maman-t12625/text-summary
Sculpture
• Sculpture is 3D, the third dimension is depth• One of the most ancient art forms
• Metal, wood, stone, clay
– Still very exciting today • New materials
fiberglass, fabric, plastic, found objects, actual light, flowers
• Installation – incorporates the entire exhibit space
4 basic methods for making sculpture
• Modeling Additive process
• Assembling Additive process
• Carving Subtractive process
• Casting Liquid is poured into a mold to harden
Modeling• The most direct sculpture method• Most common material is clay• The pliable material is shaped and
formed with hands and tools– Pinching, smoothing– Gouging, scratching, making textures
• More material can be added• While kept wet, clay can be worked
and reworked indefinitely
Ife head, terracotta, Africa,probably 12-14th centuries
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ifet/hd_ifet.htm
Olmec baby-face figurine, hollow, whiteware ceramicsMesoamerica, 1400-400BCE
Venus of Dolní Věstonice, clay, before 25,000 BCE
Empire of Dust, Beth Cavener Stichter2006, Stoneware, antique wooden box
23 in. h x 41 in. l x 45 in. d
http://followtheblackrabbit.com/Beast_In_Process.htm
Humiliation By Design, Beth Cavener Stichter2009, Stoneware, steel, cast iron gears, rope
Olympia, Beth Cavener Stichter
HyperrealismKeng Lye, acrylic and resin, 3D painting, built up in layers
Keng Lye, alive without breath series3D painting, acrylic, resin, built up in layers
Casting• Very indirect method of forming sculpture– Sometimes an artist never touches the finished work
• Bronze is the most common material association with casting– the metal can be superheated until it flows easily to be
poured into a mold– It hardens to extreme durability
• Other casting materials include:– Glass, ceramics, fiberglass, resin, plastic, metals
Somaskanda (Shiva and his wife Uma)12th century, Chola dynasty, Bronze
Ife, bronze casting from Yoruba, 13th century
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ifet/hd_ifet.htm
lost-wax casting
• 5000 year history• Simple and ingenious• Textbook, pg 241• http://www.andresteadsculpture.com/casting.php• Sometimes sculptures are cast in pieces and then
assembled, welded together over an armature• Usually the mold is reusable & multiples are made• The sculptures are not solid• Other materials besides metal can be used for finished
cast artworks: fiberglass, resin,
Vaquero, Luis Jimenez, Modeled 1980, cast 1990. Height 16’7”
Acrylic, urethane, fiberglass, steel armature.
Karen LaMonte, 2007, cast glass
Karen LaMonte
Ron Mueckhyperrealism, large scale, fiberglass casting
Process: http://www.nga.gov.au/Mueck/director.cfm
The Thinker, Rodin, 1879-89
The Burghers of Calais, Rodin, 1884
carving• More aggressive than modeling, more direct
than casting• Sculptor begins with a block of material– Wood, stone, plaster• Jade is too hard to be carved, can only be shaped
through abrasion• Basalt – a volcanic stone used by the Olmec
– The grain must be considered when carving
Dagger with horse head pommel. India, Mughal dynasty, 17th century. Blade: Damascus steel inlaid with gold; hilt: jade with carved decoration, inlaid with gold and semi-precious stones.
Colossal head of La Venta, Mexico,Olmec, 700 BCE
Olowe of Ise, Bowl with figures, early 20th century, wood, pigment, height 25”
Olowe of Ise
“The Dying Gaul” marble, 3rd cen BCE, a roman copy of Hellenistic bronze
Michelangelo’s Pieta
assembling
• Assemblage - Individual parts can be placed on or near each other
• Construction – the pieces are joined together• Sometimes the parts are called “found objects”
Joseph Cornell, 1945
Joseph Cornell, 1936about: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-cornell-joseph.htm
Joseph Cornell, 1943
Bohyun Yoon, Unity Installation
Meret Oppenheim, Object, 1936gazelle fur covered teacup, saucer & spoon
Alexander Calder
Alice Aycock, "The Uncertainty of Ground State Fluctuations," installation view in Clayton, Missouri (2007)
John Kearney
Sculpture
• Low relief – the subject projects very slightly from the background– A coin, carved doors, an Egyptian tomb wall
• High relief – the subject projects much more boldly from the background– Projects at least half its depth
• sculpture “in the round” – the viewer can walk completely around the sculpture, the view from all sides is interesting– Sometimes there is still a front and back
Pharaoh Akhenaten with his wife Nefertiti and daughters. Sometimes called sunken relief or intaglio
Roman frieze
Lapith fighting a centaur, Parthenon, ca. 447–433 BC
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Gates of Paradise
http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/ghiberti/themes.html
Ghiberti, Gates of Paradise, detail
Ghiberti, 1401
earthwork
• Art made for a specific place usually using the materials found on the site
Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson, Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1970 - present
Spiral Jetty
http://landscapelover.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/round-like-a-circle-in-a-spiral/
Serpent Mound, Ohio, 1070,overall length 1300’
Serpent Mound
Nazca Lines, Peru, 200BCE-700CE
Nazca linesThe lines are shallow designs made in the ground by removing the ubiquitous
reddish pebbles and uncovering the whitish ground beneath.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, pg 275 http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/#
The Umbrellas, Japan, 1991
The Umbrellas, California
Reichstag, Berlin, Germany
Wrapped Reichstag, 1995
Valley Curtain, Colorado, 1972
Running Fence, Sonoma, California, 1976
Jeff Koons, Puppy, 1992+, live flowering plants, earth, geotextile, internal irrigation system
http://dalaigrandma.blogspot.com/2009/03/jeff-koons-puppy.html?m=1
End of chapter