Contemporary Sculpture

In recent years, artists have blurred the boundaries between all identities and media, to forge new territories, with recyclable materials, sound, light, movement, film projection,technological and digital developments, even 3-D printing, to create immersive, participatory, and multi-sensorial experiences.

Concepts such as land art, textile and fibre art, environmental installations, even ephemeral gaseous structures, relate to the description of sculpture.

· Rachel Whiteread (born 1963) was the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993.  She casts everyday objects, or the space between, under or around, furniture and buildings. In her own poetic description, Whiteread “mummifies the air around a room to express the void rather than the structure”. She exhumes memories and gives a voice to shapes that are never noticed, forcing us to look at physical locations and emotional places that are forgotten or overlooked.

· Cornelia Parker (born 1956) is a conceptual visual artist. She engages with critical contemporary issues of immigration, violent conflicts, ecology, and human rights, by collecting familiar objects, that she then crushes, explodes, shoots, burns or turns inside out. These transformations release not only new meanings but also question our moral responsibility with the world. Parker has worked with the British Army, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, the police, school children, and others. A key characteristic of her work is the element of chance and loss of control that each collaboration brings.

delivered by SOPHIE LACHOWSKY as a HYBRID lecture (online and in person)

If you enjoy talks by Sophie or on sculpture, please consider watching these: 

3/3/23: HARD STONE AND SOFT POWER: THE METAMORPHOSIS OF GIAN LORENZO BERNINI

31/3/23: THE ABSTRACTION OF LOUISE NEVELSON - ON THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS AND THE GEOMETRY OF FEAR

Once booked you will receive a confirmation email containing the link to join the talk(s). Should you be joining us in person, please come to the Richmond Libary Annexe.

All three talks will be recorded and can be bought afterwards for members on our database in case they missed the live event.