Contemporary sculptors

Since the beginning, sculptors have had a special place within the community of artists. They have long been considered brilliant craftsmen, when painters were unambiguously artists.

This reflection is particularly suitable for contemporary sculptors . Contemporary sculpture is constantly changing. It is a very lively field, with the use of many techniques. She overflows with an inventive spirit.

Nowadays, the contemporary artist uses everything within his reach. Sculptors use the latest technologies and want to keep up with our times.

The contemporary artist

Is an art lover who engages in the practice of visual arts a contemporary artist or even simply an artist in the etymological sense of the word? The answer is no, because too often we confuse art and decoration.

Creating beauty is not enough, even if we produce original pieces. It is necessary for a work to provoke more than a simple aesthetic reaction, which makes you think it would look good in a living room.

This concept of contemporary artist is so widely used that no one can give it a precise meaning. Artist of our time, artist recognized by the art world, popular artist, innovative artist, so many definitions to designate a multitude of art actors.

The word contemporary for an artist must find meaning again. It must speak to the people of our time and be the bearer of ideas which do not yet exist and which will nevertheless be our future.

The works are not only initiated to be contemplated, but to act on minds.

Art4you gallery presents sculptors who are overflowing with inventiveness.

Mireille Louviot is an example with her mixed work between driftwood and ceramics. Combining the action of water on wood and the fire of ceramic work is daring. The result is there.

Origin of contemporary sculpture

Modern European sculpture has slowly moved away from realistic reproduction of sculpture since the Renaissance. This discipline has seen the emergence of a multitude of sculptors and remarkable works.

The revolution of Fauvism and Cubism in painting also had an impact on sculpture. Indeed, modern European art began to change its nature from Cubism.

The deconstruction and reorganization of objects by Picasso and Georges Braque influenced the inspiration for the sculptors' space. The artist's inner emotions were thus expressed in a freer form.

The styles

The influence of Cubism on sculpture was significant. Sculpture was no longer limited to the beauty of objects and the rules of symmetrical balance, nor to the representation of narrative literary themes, but focused on its own aesthetic factors such as volume, space and form.

Rodin's sculptures marked a turning point at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Although Rodin's work did not escape the art of reproduction, like the impressionist painters of the late 19th century, it raised many questions relating to artistic expression.

The other path was to break away from Rodin's framework, abandoning traditional expressions and defining sculpture as a three-dimensional, purely formal work of art.

20th century sculptor explorer, Constantin Brancusi was Rodin's assistant. He felt that he did not share the latter's artistic aspirations and left him. He then entered the world of avant-garde art in Paris, with the Cubists. Influenced by Picasso, who gave him a taste for rustic beauty and primitive art, he emancipated himself from his master.

Unlike the Cubists, who destroyed and reconstructed the original visual image, Brancusi's sculptures were designed to preserve the original prototype.

Henry Moore said: “Since the Gothic period, European sculpture has been covered with moss, weeds, and the accumulation of surface objects which cover the form. It was only with the arrival of Brancusi that the excesses were completely removed. It gave us a sense of form again.”

Brancusi retains the original qualities of the material he sculpts, his language is simplified and general, but his work reveals an inner emotion. The most characteristic element of his work is the high degree of purity of form, that is, the form is shaped in such a way as to express the most fundamental characteristics of the object, without taking into account other details.

He fundamentally changed the traditional conception of sculpture, which explains why Western artists have called Brancusi the "father of modern Western sculpture." ".

The birth certificate for a generation of contemporary sculptors

The year 1970 was undoubtedly a turning point for contemporary sculpture, particularly with the impact in the art world of the book “ What is modern sculpture”.

Goldwater, Robert (1907-1973). Author – Published by The Museum of Modern Art. New York (NY) – 1969

The author, Robert Goldwater, a distinguished art historian, has been professor of fine arts at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University since 1957. Among his many published works is Artists on Art, Modern Art in Your Life, Gauguin, Primitlvism in Modern Art, and Space and Dream.

Designed as an introduction to modern sculpture, this book illustrates a representative selection of sculptures produced from the late 19th century to the present.

It emphasizes direct appreciation of individual works rather than historical sequence. This book presents the sculptures in related groups accompanied by a description of each work. The sculptures are accompanied by texts which explain their formal character and the intentions which guided their creation. It is a reference book which lays the foundations of what will become contemporary sculpture .

The themes are examined almost in a scientific manner. They are still relevant today. The torso, the portrait, the cubism, the assemblage, the relief and the monuments go beyond the trends of the 60s.

This publication also emphasizes the artistic developments of the time. As a response to modern sculptors and an order to be renewed with new aspirations: environment, sciences, wars, sexual identity, women's voices, etc.

The upheaval of contemporary sculpture implies a form of disorder, a departure from the conventional. The variety of solutions becomes a reflection on the meaning of the new sculpture. The materials are diversifying, giving multiple possibilities to artists.

Among the many artists who participated in this paradigm shift are Jean Arp, Constantin Brâncuși Alexandre Calder, Naum Gabo , Alberto Giacometti, Julio Gonzalez, Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Claes Oldenburg, Pablo Picasso, George Segal and David Smith .

In the 1920s, Marcel Duchamp and his acolytes like Moholy-Nagy, Schwitters and Tatline began to pioneer the discipline. After the war, sculptors such as Giacometti, Brancusi and Picasso truly revolutionized modern sculpture. It spread with innovative practices, which opened the way for our contemporary sculpture.

From “Installation”, to land art through new technologies, such as the control of light in luminous art, to conceptual art, the new bases of contemporary sculpture are shaking up our historical conceptions.

With the use of waste, through all ranges of solid, liquid, gaseous, mineral or organic materials, artistic experiences multiply.

Modern sculptors

They define themselves as artists who experiment with abstraction and use new materials and new techniques. Modern sculpture begins, according to art historians, with Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) and ends with Pop Art and Minimalism in the 1960s.

The evolution of sculpture was progressive and lagging behind other arts. A heavy figurative tradition slowed down its development. Additionally, it was limited in the use of materials.

Artists used marble and bronze almost exclusively.

The new sculptors became more individualistic and daring, they took a step back from their peers. They became chemists, plastic molders, and began to master many innovative techniques. A new era was dawning.

Because their work has become technically very demanding, contemporary sculptors have trained with industrialists in order to correctly use a wide variety of tools and technical equipment and to master technical gestures.

What is a contemporary sculptor?

One of the major recent aesthetic directions has been to take mundane objects and transform them into something intense and alive.

Jeff Koons is a great example. Coming from a modest background, with a seamstress mother and a furniture salesman father, he never forgot his roots when he became a renowned artist.

He always uses ordinary objects to transform them into works of art. It expresses a questioning about a consumerist and excessively mediatized society

Whistleblowers or messengers?

Contemporary sculptors are, more than in other arts, agitators who seek to denounce our dangerous societal practices.

From Christo, who warns of the problem of packaging with a reflection on the appearance or suggestion of reality, to Banksy, sculptor who in 2004 produced fake banknotes bearing the image of Lady Diana at a festival in Notting Hill .

According to a widely held idea, art is a vector of messages. From this evidence a deviance was formed in which the message in the work became more important than the work itself.

Minimal Art

Mies van Der Rohe (1886-1969) was an architect. Tired of the pop art movement which was spreading throughout the USA with artists like (Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns), he advocated sobriety in art and particularly in sculpture. A movement is gradually taking hold, minimalist art. It is a return to the matter of objects in their environment.

Minimal art is based on a relationship between the work and the space. Objects react with their environment, in the terms of Donald Judd “Specific Objects” 1965.

The style of the “stacks” is simplistic with blocks, all the same size and color, attached to the wall.

Contemporary Chinese sculptors

From 1990, art in China began to emerge from the underground. Great vitality appears particularly in the East Village district of Beijing. Many artist workshops are being created.

For most contemporary sculptors, it would be more accurate to say that art is revealing and emancipatory. Provocative artists play with conventions and take liberties with political-economic codes. It is not uncommon for them to use the symbols that are company brands to denounce overconsumption and often without the agreement of these companies who then see their image distorted. In this sense, contemporary sculpture acts on our present and participates in a global reflection on our future.

However, it is distressing to see this “revolutionary mind” tool captured by the business world and investors. The message, as a result, becomes blurred.

It is a recent posture to understand the art of Jeff Koons who remains a precursor. Many artists follow in his footsteps. He remains a founding and iconic artist of contemporary art.

The middle of the 20th century was a period of experimentation. The 21st century proves the current vitality of an art which is becoming essential.

Fame is not synonymous with excellence.

The artists selected by Art4You Gallery participate in this great movement in contemporary sculpture.

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