Contemporary Sculptures

Famous contemporary sculpture art and sculptors   

In 1897, Auguste Rodin, a neo-baroque artist, turned sculpting on its head with his Monument to Balzac. He caused outrage at the public exhibition of his work at the Salon of 1898, which was described at the time as a "shapeless mass".

Modern sculpture is becoming more and more free from the ideals of the 19th century and mixes genres, following in the footsteps of Rodin's disciples, Camille Claudel and Antoine Bourdelle. Sculpture no longer has a particular function, such as representing power or being a religious object. Its sole purpose is to allow the sculptor to express themselves freely.

Sculptors draw their inspiration from literature, philosophy and painting. Picasso introduced fragmentation and transparency into his metal and cardboard constructions during his Cubist period. In 1934, he also created a series of modern molded-texture sculptures: Woman with Foliage and Woman with Orange during his Surrealist period. Miró, who was also a painter, created The Setting Object, a surrealist object. It was made in 1936 from a log of wood from a carob tree which was collected from his farm in Tarragona.

Brancusi had an important influence on the evolution of modern sculpting methods. He did not see himself as a creator, but as an intermediary capable of revealing the true essence matter through the various materials he used.

Initially attracted to cubist style, Henri Laurens gradually moved closer to nature. He creates abstract characters in an organic style, including female nudes. He then created sculptures of women such as Le petit adieu in 1940, La petite sirène in 1945 and La Lune in 1946.

Alexandre Calder goes further into abstraction. He was also inspired by nature and the universe in order to create his works built out of metal wire and wood. His sculptures, described as mobiles by Marcel Duchamp, are groupings of forms brought to life by the movement of air.

Alberto Giacometti devoted himself to the study and replication of the human head. He then became interested in tall, wiry figures. He created Quatre femmes sur un socle and La Clairière in 1950. 

Minimal art influences sculpture. Piero Manzoni is the pioneer of Arte Povera and conceptual art. In 1960, he created a Sculpture in space which contains a  80 cm in diameter suspension sphere held in mid-air by a jet of water.

Contemporary sculpture is no longer just a simple object to model for today's artists.  It passes through the body and space, which is the subject of a lot of attention.

Neo-conceptual artists do not hesitate to use technologies and innovations developed in the field of marketing and communication.

Styles and techniques used in contemporary sculptures

From 1900 to 1970, sculpture becomes increasingly conceptualized, just like painting, but relying on two very distinct axes: the aesthetics of culture and the aesthetics of nature.

The first is inspired by formal or ideological cultural ideas, which we find in cubism, futurism, Dadaism and constructivism.

The second is based on a philosophy of nature and a mythical way of thinking, which generates biological or organic forms. Several movements are part of this nature aesthetic: primitivism, archaic figuration, organic abstraction, the surrealist object, "action" sculpture, arte povera and post-minimal.

Between 1968 and 1974, modern sculpture began a structural and conceptual metamorphosis. It extended its domain to include Land art, which uses the framework and materials from nature, to sites and to conceptual art. Contemporary sculpture integrates the living, the intangible and the conceptual. It opens itself to the format of an art installation.