What sculpture did we create?

Assemblage

• 20th century (1950’s)

• 3D version of a collage

• Origins trace to Picasso and Braque

• Transformations of non-art objects and materials (or even junk) into sculptures through combining or constructing techniques such as gluing and welding

• Picasso’s bull head, and guitar (what are they made of?)

Edward Kienholz

The Illegal Operation

1962

• John Chamberlain• Assemblages can be abstract

Louise Nevelson-painted wood

abstractions- usually painted one colour

• Nancy Worthington, “War What’s It Good For? Absolutely Nothing”©2004, mixed-media interactive construction, 3′4″ (h) x 2′5″ (w) x 2′5″. Courtesy of the artist

• Dan Bentley Helix 2 ( I found this on the internet)

Found Object

• An existing object- often mundane manufactured product- given a new identity as an artwork one part of an artwork

• Marcel Duchamp is credited with the origin of this type of art.

The Fountain- Duchamp

• Also called Readymades- adding a title to an unaltered mass produced object.- he would exhibit it- therefore transforming it into a readymade sculpture.

• Fountain- intention- to emphasize art’s intellectual basis and to shift attention away from the physical act or craft in the making of the art…in otherwords..the message was more important then the artistic skill of the artist.

Edward Kienholz

• Assembled mannequins and discarded furniture

Like much of Kienholz's work, Sollie 17 is about WWII. The name of the work references Stalag 17, a POW camp for captured Allied soldiers in Germany. Kienholz uses the concept of continuous motion to convey the stagnancy of the man's life. All three figures are the same man, at first reading on the bed, then sitting up, and lastly looking out the window at the world outside. Like the man trapped in his tiny room, the soldiers in Stalag 17 suffered from boredom and depression.

Ed Kienholz: The Portable War Museum, 1968

Halm Steinbach• Ensembles of

mass produced components intended to question whether artworks made of mass produced components can be simultaneously functional, decorative, and expressive

Haim Steinbach (born Rehovot, Israel, 1944 and living in New York City since 1957) has been an influential exponent of art based on already existing objects. Since the late 1970's Steinbach's art has been focused on the selection and arrangement of objects, above all everyday objects. In order to enhance their interplay and resonance, he has been conceiving structures and framing devices for them. Steinbach presents objects ranging from the natural to the ordinary, the artistic to the ethnographic, giving form to art works that underscore their identities and inherent meanings. Exploring the psychological, aesthetic, cultural and ritualistic aspects of objects as well as their context, Steinbach has radically redefined the status of the object in art. http://haimsteinbach.net/

six feet under, 2004plastic laminated wood shelf; plasitc frog; plastic feet; ceramicpig; wooden clogs 38 x 69 1/4 x 19 “ (96.5 x 175.9 x 48.3 cm)

Joseph Beuys’s• Dogsled sculpture ('The Pack-

1969‘)- invokes his personal history

• The most important of the personal myths (many feel the tale is not true)– tells how, after his plane crashed in the Crimea during the Second World War, he was rescued by Tartars who coated his body with animal fat and wrapped him in felt.

• The Pack (1969) is a battered VW bus from which sleds, each with a roll of felt, a lump of fat and a torch strapped to it, stream out in ordered rows, as though leashed together like a dog team. But maybe I shouldn’t be amused; Beuys said: ‘In a state of emergency the Volkswagen bus is of limited usefulness, and more direct and primitive means must be taken to ensure survival.’

• Whether old or new, a found object infuses an artwork with meaning associated with its past use or intended function.

Junk Sculpture-primarily in the1950’s

•Assemblages fashioned from industrial debris. •Originator German DaDa artist Kurt Schwitter, who began to create assemblages and collages from trash gathered in the streets after WW1.•WW2 produced industrial refuse on a grand scale and dumps and automobile graveyards became the favourite haunts of artists

Cesar-CompressionsHad entire cars compressed in squat and strangely beautiful columns that reveal their origins as vehicular junk

“Can a work of art that does not show evidence of craftsmanship still be considered art?”- Cesar

Catherine Millet: “César, as classical as his spirit may be [...], as attached as he is to the importance of craft, has found himself caught in a dilemma; he has discovered that sculpture is not just an art of accurate proportions and beautiful materials to be touched, it may also be an idea.”

When a large American press capable of crushing an entire car became available in France, César decided to use this tool to create a complete sculpture. With this technique, the artist no longer uses his own hands to realize the sculpture, he creates a work of art with the assistance of the machine. César selected particular cars for crushing, mixing elements from differently coloured vehicles. In this way he could control the surface pattern and colour scheme of the piece. A 'Renault' nameplate can be seen on this sculpture.

Lee Boutecou

• Combines steel machine parts with fabric to produce abstract reliefs

"Untitled," 1980-98. Welded steel, porcelain, wire mesh, canvas, grommets, and wire, 7 x 8 x 6 ft

• The use of discarded material in such works commented on the throwaway mentality of postwar consumerism.

• It also implies that welded iron and steel are more important sculptural materials for the machine age than carved marble or cast bronze

Ben’s Shop (Ben Vaultier) is the reconstitution of a real shop (record shop called- Magazin) and artist’s meeting place that was formerly located in Nice. Putting his signature on both objects and abstract notions. Ben, the subversive megalomaniac, systematizes Duchamp’s act and declares: “ Everything is art.” Intention and attitude prevail over the work itself. “I could no longer throw anything away. A match seemed as beautiful as the Mona Lisa. I had to keep absolutely everything.” The Shop evolved into a teeming installation cum Bric a brac in constant metamorphosis. The establishment hosted exhibitions and performances; It became a tourist curiosity and a rallying point for Nice’s young art scene. In 1972, Ben dismantled the Shop, that had anyway became too small, deciding instead to exhibit it.

“ Everything is art.”

Once a real store, built by a hoarder from nice between 1958-1973

• Left: Untitled (I Shop Therefore I Am), Barbara Kruger, 1987. Private Collection. Image courtesy of Thomas Ammann Fine Art, Zurich.