Sculptures (7 Jan 2010)

Techniques involved:

•Carving(subtractive)
•Modeling
•Assembling (additive)
•Casting
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Different types:
•freestanding sculpture
•relief


freestanding sculpture
“Dicus-thrower” by Myron BCE 449-334
(relief)：
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Classical Greek Sculpture:
During the Classical period, Greek sculptors focused their energies on naturalizing effects on the human figure.
The beginning of the Modern period of Sculpture--- Auguste Rodin

Rodin's main contributions:
1.Abandoned the idea of making a work solely for commission
2.Used fragments as a definitive art form
3.Created a fashionable theme: speed with the torso (body )

1.Abandoned the idea of making a work solely for commission à sculptures became more personal to the maker
Craft or art???


The Gates of Hell, 1880-1917

2. Used fragments as a definitive art form




Hand of the Devil
The Secret, 1910

3.Created a fashionable theme: speed with the torso (body)
Walking Man, c. 1900

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“Ready-made” --- Duchamp
•The concept of “ready-made” is very powerful in modern period of art, because it helps break the tradition and pushes artists to try more different medium.
Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887 - 2 October 1968) was a French painter and theorist, a major proponent of DADA, and one of the most influential figures of avant-garde 20th-century art
Nude Descending A Staircase (1912)
Fountain is perhaps best known for the huge historical scandal it sparked in the art world: the Richard Mutt Case.
It was refused entry to the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists at the Grand Central Palace in April 1917.
Fountain, 1917
The Richard Mutt Case:
They say any artist who pays six dollars may exhibit.Mr. Richard Mutt sent in a fountain. Without discussion, this object disappeared and was never exhibited.What were the grounds for refusing Mr Mutt's fountain:-1. Some contended it was immoral, vulgar.2. Others that is was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing.Now Mr Mutt's fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bathtub is absurd. It is a fixture which you see every day in plumbers' show windows.

Whether Mr Mutt made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view - created a new thought for that object.
http://arthist.binghamton.edu/duchamp/fountain.html
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Other Conceptual Artworks:

Piero Manzoni – for him, individuality itself became art in real time, expressing “being and living.’’


















Much of conceptual art focused on the artistic experience itself and its theoretical components


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Acconci explored the artist-viewer relationship in this piece, by randomly selecting individuals on the street in New york and following them until they went into someplace that wasn’t public.
“I was a passive receiver of someone’s time and space.”



Vito Acconci, Following Piece, 1969


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Site-Specific Art

creating an art work that
•is integrated with its surroundings
•explores its relationship to its location
(e.g. indoors or outdoor, on a street, in a living room etc.)

What is it?


It is a castle called Reichstag in Germany being wrapped by the artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude.













Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95,Christo and Jeanne-Claude




http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/wr.html

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What is it?



It is an art piece called “Where We Are Now (Who Are We Anyway?)” by Vito Acconci done in New York in 1978.


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Wow…
Who is it?

Untitled. by Robert Gober (1989-90) Material: Wax, cotton, leather, human hair, and wood, Size: 28.9 x 19.7 x 50.8 cm