Chapter 2.4: Sculpture: video part 4. We're in sculpture. We looked over lost-wax
casting and we looked at the "Raice Warrior" [in the previous video] There are
some diagrams in the book and charts on page 250 and 251, these are
really great for breaking down
different materials and how they relate
to the methods. So beyond traditional
methods (you know for thousands and tens
of thousands of years people have been
doing carving and modeling).
Then later bronze casting 
happened quite a bit later.
Then we get into the modern world and
this is gonna go in the deep past also.
Once we have all
these new materials,  new manufacturing [in the 20th & 21st Centuries]
we get into some other materials. Earthworks
are like giant outdoor
sculptures or a landmass.
These  (I should say
earthworks evolved out of the minimalism
period in the in the late 60s early 70s). 
The Minimalists were feeling that they wanted
to get away from purchasable artworks
and they wanted to have something that
was monumental and outside of the
gallery. Two important things: 1. not able
to purchase and 2. outside of a gallery.
Those would be sort of the
reasonings [for earthworks]  but they wanted something
that was going to be enormous and also
be out in the world. This is an
ancient earthwork
that is almost three thousand years old
in Ohio,  so what the Minimalists are
doing is that they're harkening back to
the ancient world and thinking about you
know this these ancient constructs of
Earth. The patterns and designs that
they made;  so if you look here we have
this spiral here. Three thousand
years ago in Ohio, and then we move forward into 1970 in
the Great Salt Lake [Utah].  Robert Smithson
makes the Spiral Jetty and basically
this is made by the local materials and
a bulldozer. He just takes a bulldozer and
pushes it there,  comes back pushes it
there,  flattens it out. And then goes a
little further,  a little further and then
makes this spiral. This is underwater at
times because it's the edge of a lake;
and then other times it's more exposed
like this. That was part of the
intent;  was to interact with nature.
Construction: when we think about
construction it's a pretty broad
category. Specifically there were
Constructivists and the Soviet
Constructivists in the early 20th
century,  but the idea of putting together
components (this is a welded piece
of flat planes of steel and this is a
manufactured material). That's part of
how materials start to change. This is
100 years old plus. (104 years old, 1916)
Welded flattened steel at this point in time
and sculptors are experimenting with
existing manufactured materials.
This is 1916. Then the Minimalists go
further with it in 1960 so about 50
years later. We see some of these
Minimalist pick up some of these ideas
that were explored but not really fully
at that
time. Constructivist artist
Gobbo and he is more interested in the
interior construction than the exterior
surface so if you think about how the
the volumes were constructed? We don't
have a skin on top of this;  that's
basically with Gabo is saying. It's
showing this sort of [metal] bones underneath.
Damien Hirst: this is much more modern, 
1991, and this is really a more
conceptual piece although it is
constructed
and then filled with water. It had to
be very specific aquarium glass and
formaldehyde and it had to be well done. 
But he didn't really know what he
was doing and over time the shark fell
apart and just disintegrated and he had
to redo this and pickle a shark find a new shark
and do the whole thing over again.
Anyway this is full of water it's a
permanent sculpture and it is moved
around and shown quite frequently.
Assemblage is another mode of working [in sculpture]. When you think about construction you're
pulling together materials and that
usually refers to like welded metal and
and and lumber that kind of thing. But
when you're getting into assemblage
you're getting into found objects. What found objects are they're sort of
the things that we are throwing away as
people and also as manufacturing waste.
This first example here is
Betty Saar (she's actually a Los Angeles
artist and her daughter Alison's are
actually both her daughters are artists
as well Leslie Saar) but this is sort of
going from Joseph Cornell which we don't
really look at in this semester. But this
is a box and then she's putting a figure,
the Aunt Jemima figure,  in here and then
some Aunt Jemima labels from syrup.
This lady's face in the 70s-
and this is 1972- for many years there
was an Aunt Jemima face put on to syrup [bottles].
It's referencing Mammys and
referencing servants and then
back behind that slavery.
She's taking a different take on this; 
she's putting in a black power fist from
the time period,  72. She's also
putting a gun into to Mammy's hand,
Aunt Jemima's hand and changing the
narrative, It's kind of
interesting,  she's exploring some
identity themes.
Readymades; this is where this found
object comes from. It comes from
Duchamp.  Duchamp originates many many things;  he originates readymades kinetic
work, Conceptualism,  appropriation;
although he is not a conceptual artist.
You want to make a distinction of
what he actually is versus what he
influenced. A lot of other other isms
or a lot of other categories
grandfathered him in because he was such
a heavy influence. We're gonna look at
an assemblage piece this is
found object. So,  these are some bicycle
handles and this is a bicycle seat. This
is Picasso's [work].  Picasso is imitating Duchamp. Duchamp is from the teens and 20s which
Picasso is,  too. They are
contemporaries;  they're about the same
age,  but Picasso likes this idea that
Duchamp comes up with and makes a piece
that looks like a bull's head out of
found materials that have nothing to do
with normal sculpture. Kinetic and light
sculpture:  so kinetic sculpture that's
also one of Duchamp's inventions. It refers to things
that move. It's the same [word root] as
kinesiology. Lighted work is
light sculptures.
George Rickey this is
called the "Breaking column" some of his
are motorized but some of them are wind
or motion driven or even sun driven.
So the wind would blow this
and this might spin around. If you if you
look back in 1986,  he's still in that
mode of constructing [Minimalism] with welded
aluminum. He's taking manufactured
stainless steel
and he's welding it together and it's a
kinetic piece. Moholy-Nagy [is next]
This is a really important piece and
it's a "Light Prop for an Electric Stage".
It looks like a
kitchen gadget,  but what it is (and it
probably has some kitchen gadgets)
isn't just is a found object piece. 
It's also a functional piece where for
theater design he came up with this
thing to do light,  noise and all kinds of
things. He was a really interesting
artist and this is early very early 1929,
early twentieth century. It became the
main character in the film by the artist.
A motor moves a series
of perforated discs that cross in front
of a light installation work. Installation work is similar to earth
works in the sense that they're very
large and that you get inside of them
and you interact with them in a physical
way. This particular piece is a light
piece,  so it's covering two categories
it's an installation and a light piece.
You're walking around it and
interacting with it( it's not giving us
how high it is but it's quite tall) but
this is a light piece and also you're
interacting and getting near it. The last
thing we're going to look at is Antony
Gormley, "Asian Field",  and you do have a
Essay question I believe on this. These
are clay pieces that he made and he 
asked for a lot of people to come in
this village and to make similar figures
and then to fill up this entire space. So
this is Installation work. Ann Hamilton
is the premier installation artists in
the world and this is similar to
something she would do;  where she would
just cover an entire floor with a
repeating object and it would just be a
very intense area. This is a warehouse
in says former Shanghai number 10 steel
works, China. It's really
speaking to the massiveness of people
and I'm going to let you read more on the
intent of this but the visual aspect of
it is overwhelming and it fills a whole
room. Often with Installation,  you can
walk (like there's a pathway through
something or they're sort of a walkway
around it or you stand in the middle).
Yayoi Kusama makes work
where you walk into a room and then
you're in there by yourself. So there's
different ways that installations are
formed this one we can only view from
this doorway here. [You cannot go inside]
