The Trouble with Sculpture

New Contemporaries

The Trouble with Sculpture.

Given its capacity to originate and absorb the conventions of art in so many ways, is sculpture viable as a category in contemporary art?

And is the term any longer relevant to artists? Joining the discussion will be artists Martina Schmücker, Haroon Mirza, Keith Wilson and Nathaniel Mellors as well as curator and chair of New Contemporaries Sacha Craddock.

The two main historical practices in art, painting and sculpture, endure today. But while painting expands modestly from its place on the wall from time to time, sculpture has exploded or evaporated into those art forms that painting cannot accommodate. What sculpture has come to mean today is partially indebted to the impact of ‘performance art’ which conversely influenced it too, just as it spawned installation and environments, land art, sound and time based art, and any art forms that inhabit real space are rooted in sculpture.

This event took place on 19 January 2011