Chapter 9: Sculpture / Chapter 10: Site Specific Art

Sculpture

________ is the art of carving, casting, modeling or assembling materials into three dimensional figures.

Freestanding Sculptures

- have fronts, sides, backs and tops. - spaces or voids in or around the work may have as much meaning as the sculpted forms.

Degas

As ________ grew blind, he turned to sculpture so that he could work out anatomical problems through the sense of touch.

elm wood

British sculptor Barbara Hepworth's Two Figures is carved from ________.

Patina

A fine crust or film that forms on bronze or copper because of oxidation. It usually provides a desirable greenish or greenish blue tint to the metal.

burnishing

A last step in the casting process is ________.

casting

The lost-wax technique pertains to which sculpture process?

casting

A liquid material is poured into a mold in which sculpture process?

stele or stela

an engraved stone slab or pillar that serves as a grave marker

Lost Wax Casting

- An original model is made and a mold is made from it. - Molten wax is then brushed or poured onto the inner surface of the mold, to make a wax shell. - After the wax hardens, it is removed and stands as a hollow wax replica of the clay.

Tools used with stone

- Chisel - Mallet - Rasp - Power tools (modern use, not so tedious)

Ceramics

- Clay can be fired at high temperatures so that it becomes hardened and non-porous.

Stone

- Extremely hard and durable material - May be carved, scraped, drilled, and polished. - Greeks used white marble - easier to achieve detail. --- They painted it, used it more for durability than color.

Metal

- Has been used as sculpture for thousands of years. - ________ have been cast, extruded, forged, stamped, drilled, filed and burnished. - Artists have also assembled direct-metal sculptures by welding, riveting, soldering and using modern adhesives. - Different metals have different properties.

Earthworks

- In ________, large amounts of earth or land are shaped into a sculpture. - In contemporary form, earthworks started in the 1960s and are considered a literal return to nature. - Contemporary works include Smithson's Spiral Jetty, great trenches, drawings in the desert, collections of rock, shoveled rings of ice and snow.

Carving

- In ________, the sculptor begins with a block of material and cuts portions of it away until the desired form is created. - The sculptor must have a clear conception of the final product at the outset.

Constructed sculpture

- In ______________, the artist builds or constructs the sculpture from materials such as cardboard, celluloid, translucent plastic, sheet metal, or wire, resin...

Mixed media

- In mixed media constructions and assemblages, sculptors use materials and ready made or found objects that are not normally the elements of a work of art. - Ex: Simon Rodia Towers in Watts (Watts Towers) constructed by an Italian-born tile setter who immigrated to Watts, LA. Tall, whimsical, covered in bits of tile and glass, broken dishes; cement on steel frames.

Casting

- In the ________ process, a liquid material is poured into a mold. - The liquid hardens into the shape of the mold and is then removed. - An original model, made of wax, clay, or even something like Styrofoam, can be translated into a more durable material such as bronze.

Light Sculpture

- In the last century, sculptors have experimented with the additions of artificial light to their sculpture creating effects that are as varied as the light itself.

Wood

- Like stone, ______ can be carved, scraped, drilled and polished. - Unlike stone, it can be permanently molded and bent. --- Plywood, when heated, can be bent to variety of shapes. - Easier to carve than stone, but not as durable. --- May warp and crack. - It is appealing to sculptors due to grain, color and workability.

Clay

- More pliable than stone or wood. - Modeling of ______ is personal and direct. --- The fingerprints of the sculptor can be found in the material. - Has little strength --- Because of its weakness its often used to make 3-D sketches or models for sculptures made of more durable material.

Casting of human models

- Plaster, plaster bandages & gel-trate.

Lost-wax technique

A bronze-casting process in which an initial mold is made from a model (usually clay) and filled with molten wax. A second, fire-resistant mold is made from the wax, and molten bronze is cast in it.

Mold

A pattern or matrix for giving form to molten or plastic material; a frame on which something is modeled.

modeling

A pliable material, such as clay or wax, is shaped into a three-dimensional form in ________.

Rasp

A rough file that has raised points instead of ridges.

Mobile

A type of kinetic sculpture that moves in response to air currents.

moving air

Alexander Calder's mobile depend on ___________ to "come alive."

Kiln

An oven used for drying and firing ceramics.

Ephemeral art

________ is used specifically to describe works that have a temporal immediacy or are built with the recognition that they will disintegrate.

Public art

________ is work created for public spaces.

three

Sculpture is the art of carving, casting, modeling, or assembling materials into _______ -dimensional figures or forms.

additive process

Forms are built from materials such as wood, paper, string, sheet metal, and wire when an artist creates work in the technique called __________.

Land art

_______ is site-specific work that is created or marked by an artist within natural surroundings.

people

George Segal uses a variation of the casting process to produce sculptures of ___________.

Modeling

In _________, a pliable material such as clay or wax is shaped into a three dimensional form.

Subtractive sculpture

In an subtractive process, unwanted material is removed. ex: Carving

Armature

In sculpture, a framework for supporting plastic material.

Additive sculpture

In the additive process, material is added, assembled or built up to achieve its final form. ex: modeling, casting, construction, assemblage.

Freestanding sculpture

Sculpture that is carved or cast in the round, unconnected to a wall, and thereby capable of being viewed in its entirety by walking around it. Freestanding sculpture can also be designed for a niche, which limits the visible portion of the sculpture.

marble

Louise Bourgeois' Eyes is made from __________.

pedestals

Marvel Duchamp thought that found objects, or readymades, could be elevated as works of art by being placed on _________.

Direct-metal sculpture

Metal sculpture that is assembled by such techniques as welding and riveting rather than casting.

light

Michael Hayden's Arpeggio is a good example of _______ sculpture.

carving

Michaelangelo believed that the ________ process liberated forms that already existed.

Ready-mades

No assembly required, that the art is in the object itself and only needs to be placed on a pedestal (such as Duchamp's "Fountain") - it invests an object with a new idea.

bronze

Sherrie Levin's Fountains after Duchamp is a series of urinals in __________.

assemblage

Picasso's Bull's Head is an example of ___________.

idea

Readymades invest an object with a new ________.

earth

Robert Smithson's best-known sculpture material is _________.

Kinetic Sculpture

________ __________ move.

shopping

Sylvie Fleury invaded the art would in the 1990s with her series of _______ bags.

kinetic

The term used in connection with sculptures that actually moves is _________.

Sculpture

The art of carving, casting, modeling, or assembling materials into three dimensional figures or forms; a work of art made in such a manner.

Tensile strength

The degree to which a material can withstand being stretched.

Investiture

The fire-resistant mold used in metal casting.

casting

The most likely way of handing bronze for sculpture is in the technique known as __________.

carving

The most likely way of turning marble into a piece of sculpture is through the ________ technique.

construction

The most likely way of using sheet metal in sculpture is in the technique called ________.

Monuments

The purpose of _______ is to preserve the memory or person or event.

subtractive process

The sculptor cuts away portions of the material until the desired form is achieved in a(n) ___________.

thrusting and receding planes

The sculpture Kagle is a powerful work because its surface consists of ________.

Relief sculptures

Three dimensional forms that are raised from a flat background.

Extrude

To force metal through a die or small holes to give it shape.

Forge

To form or shape metal (usually heated) with blows from a hammer, press, or other implement or machine.

Stamp

To impress or imprint with a mark or design

Burnish

To make shiny by rubbing or polishing

Gate

Wax rods -- connected to the hollow wax model.

Ephemeral art

Works that have a temporary immediacy or are built with the recognition that they will disintegrate.

Assemblage

_______ is form of constructed sculpture in which pre-existing, or found, objects recognizable in form, are re-integrated by the sculptor into novel combinations that take on a life and meaning of their.

site-specific art

art that is produced in or for one location and is not intended to be relocated

High relief

figures project by at least half their natural depth.

land art

site-specific work that is created or marked by an artist within natural surroundings

Low relief or bas relief

the forms project only slightly from the background.