Power of Art Chapter 9 Sculpture

Power of Art
Chapter 9
Sculpture
The Art of Sculpture is believed to be as
old as human culture. Sculpture has
traditionally been divided into 2 major
categories – relief sculpture and
g sculpture. In the 20th
freestanding
century new categories appear.
Sculpture A Foundation of the Three
Three-Dimensional
Dimensional Arts
Artists focus on:
3-D MASS
Geometric or
Organic
Solid mass or
Pierced w/ void(s)
or Open
O
Relief or
In-the-round
Position relative to
gravity (vertical,
horizontal
horizontal,
diagonal…)
SURFACE
QUALITY
PRESENTATION
Materials: hard/ soft,
weighty/delicate,
natural/man-made
Interior/exterior
site
Texture (natural,
invented, simulated)
Color (natural,
(natural applied)
Scale
Light
Li
ht (constant,
(
t t
changing, direct or
indirect,
combination)
Free standing
on/off pedestal
or
Attached/laid
3-D MASS
Geometric or Organic
Solid mass or Pierced w/ void(s)
Relief
In-the-round
Sculptural Processes
Additive - materials
Additi
t i l are added
dd d or jjoined
i d ttogether
th tto
create the finished form.
Subtractive -material
material is removed to create the finished
form
Modeling - using both additive and subtractive techniques
Casting - material is formed through additive and/or
subtractive methods; a mold or shell of the form is
made and removed then fastened back together.
A liquid material is poured into the mold which is
then removed for finishing.
finishing
Relief Sculpture
• Relief sculpture grows out of
a flat background – the
projection
p
j
into space
p
is
relatively shallow and it only
has a frontal view
• In Assyrian palaces sharply
cut low reliefs with intricate
linear patterns show the
feats of kings
• This p
plaque
q from Nigeria
g
shows high relief
• Hierarchical scale is used to
signify power
Relief Sculpture created for viewing from one side or angle
Palette of Namer,
3150-3125 BCE Slate 25"
Akhenaton with Wife and
Daughters. Egypt
1355-1335 B.C.E.
Bas Relief - low relief
NOTE: In what way are
these two reliefs
differently carved?
Haut Relief = high relief
Nanni Di Banco, Sculptor's
Workshop 1408-14
Donald Judd
Untitled
Copper & Red
Plexiglas
1988
Assemblage Art made from
assembled objects
j
FOUND OBJECTS
(haut relief)
Joseph Cornell, Hotel Eden,1945
Sculpture in the Round
Presentation Site & lighting - interior or exterior/natural or
artificial light and direction of light
Scale - size relative to surroundings
Direction - orientation to floor - upright or vertical,
horizontal or reclined, cubic
Mount - sitting,
sitting laying directly on the floor
floor, on a
pedestal or base or suspended from a
wall or ceiling
Sculpture in the Round
• Freestanding
eesta d g sculpture
scu ptu e inhabits
ab ts 3
3dimensional space in the same way
living things do
• Must be circled around to view it
completely
• As the viewer moves around
Bernini's sculpture the figure’s
moving, twisting bodies create new
visual discoveries, and changing
patterns
tt
off positive/negative
iti /
ti space
in 3-dimensions
Kinetic Sculpture
• New categories of sculpture
were invented in the 20th
century
• Calder invented the kinetic
sculpture or mobile in Paris
in 1930
• He wanted to see his flat
g
forms float and turn
organic
in space (the first artist to
free the object from the
ground or pedestal.)
MOBILE
Alexander Calder, Untitled,
1976
Alexander Calder
STABILE
Ordinary 1967
•In
In 1960, as a nod to the New Realist’s
Realist s
manifesto, Jean Tinguely’s Homage to NY is a
mass of junk designed to be destroyed
•It burned itself to a heap in the sculpture
garden at MoMA as a comment on modern life
Conceptual Art
In the 1960s, as a backlash against the controls
of the gallery/museum system, many artists
deliberately began making art that could not be
bought or sold - appropriated - nor controlled.
Artists made works of art with objects, found
and/or made that were intended for specific
p
sites, hence dismantled, were destroyed at the
conclusion of the exhibition/event. Others
performed their ideas. Their ideas live on
through documentation.
Performance Art
• In a performance by
Joseph Beuys, he
covered his head in gold
leaf and explained his
pictures to a dead hare
•Laurie Anderson has
broken down
boundaries between
fine art and mass
culture in her popular
performances
combining electronic
music and performance
art
Laurie Anderson
From the Home off the
Brave 1980
Installations
• A mixed-media
installation or
environment can be
constructed in galleries,
museums, or even
public spaces
p
p
• Kenny Scharf
transformed a hallway
at the Whitney biennial
in 1985, mixing day-glo
paints, cartoon
characters and trash
characters,
with loud music creating
a sort of post-modern
fun-house
Chris Burden
All the Submarines of the United States of America 1987
Installation
Nancy Holt
Sun Tunnels
Great Basin Desert,,
Utah
1973-76
Christo & Jean-Claude
Conceptual Art
Running Fence
Sonoma & Marin Counties,
CA. 1972-76
Wrapped Islands,
Islands Biscayne Bay,
Bay FL
Wrapped Reigstadt,
Berlin Germany 1974-1994
Christo & Jean Claude The Gates, NY 1979 - 2005
Earthworks
•
•
•
•
Earth Art provides an
environment (like Installation
art) but also leaves the gallery
and interacts with nature
Smithson with his Spiral Jetty
creates a work reminiscent of
ancient monuments
B ilt outt off natural
Built
t l materials
t i l
from the site, from a vision of a
spiral he said he had while
walking around the lake
Nature will reclaim it over time –
it actually has submerged and
reemerged in recent years
Sculptural Methods
• There are 2 basic categories of
sculptural
p
methods
• Additive – sculpture is built up with a
flexible material or constructed like an
installation
• Subtractive – sculpture is carved out of
hard material like stone or wood
Sculptural Methods
Modeling
• A model created by a
sculptor is like a sketch
in 3-dimensions
• Rodin’s Walking Man
started out as a studyy
for a John the Baptist
• He preserved it by
casting it in bronze
B h
Burghers
off C
Calais
l i 1884-86
1884 86
Auguste Rodin
Rejected
Genius
Auguste Rodin,
Rodin
The Age of Bronze,
France 1875-77
Balzac 1897
Sculptural Methods
Casting
• Since ancient times
the most common
material for casting
has been the metal
bronze
• Most cast metal
sculptures are
hollow – made with
the
e lost
ost wax
a method
et od
Sculptural Methods
W dC
Wood
Carving
i
• The negative space is
removed (as in a
woodcut) – the form
emerges
• It is the most important
sculptural art of Africa –
usually carved from a
single piece of wood
• The vertical, cylindrical
shape
h
off the
th tree
t
is
i
reflected in the final work
Subtractive
Wood:
Additive Processes
David Bates
Seated Man #4, 1995
Metal - Constructing and Assembling
• Some modern techniques
have been borrowed from
gy
industrial technology
• David Smith uses welding
and soldering learned
while working in an
automobile factory
• His large stainless steel
structures balance simple
geometric
t i fforms – giving
i i
them a sense of
weightlessness and
incorporating negative
space into the design
Welding -20th Century Innovation
Metal Fabrication (Additive)
Found materials,
cut & assembled
Picasso, Guitar.
1912-13
David Smith
Hudson River Landscape
1951 Welded steel
Stone Carving
• Stone carvers use 3
tools
• The point – to cut into
the block
• The claw – to shape the
form
• The chisel – to add
detail and finish
• Bernini creates fine
detail and a great sense
of texture,, as he depicts
p
the moment of
Daphne’s
transformation
Michelangelo
Pieta 1498-99 CE
Rondanini Pieta’ 1546
David,
d 1501-04
Slave, 1525?
Academe d’Arte,
Florence, Italy
15th Century
Early Gothic
Early Renaissance
Comparison
Co
pa so
of Style
From
expressionistic
i i ti
distortion to a
return to the
naturalistic
and classical…
Prophet Jeremiah
Church of SaintPierre,Moissac,
Toulouse,, France
1115-30 CE
Donatello, 1386-1466
Moses
Contemporary Approaches
Mixed Media
• Mixed media combines
more than one of the
media
• Tony Oursler combines
sculpture, video,
projection, and installation
• His simple biomorphic
shapes are projected onto
with
ith a video
id off moving
i
eyes and a talking mouth
•Patrick Dougherty
g
y
creates a
“pantheistic
hideaway”
y as a
private sanctuary
for viewers
•It
It is meant to be
experienced both
outside and inside