No marble or bronze for sculptor David Mach. For over 35 years, he has been transforming bulk raw materials and what many consider junk or garbage—old tires, magazines, out-of-date telephone directories, empty bottles, Barbie dolls, postcards, coat hangers, and matches—into memorable, wacky, inventive, crowd-drawing public art.
Speak, Materials: Dan Steinhilber’s Way with the Everyday
Do you remember the sound of your parents’ basement? The drone of the dehumidifier, the steady whir of the dryer, the hollow thump made by Uncle Kent’s college trunk? Dan Steinhilber does. Marlin Underground, his installation on the lower level of the Kreeger Museum in Washington, DC, (on view until December 29) consists of an ensemble
A Conversation with Adrián Villar Rojas: The End of the Human Race
Many contemporary artists create large-scale installations, but those fabricated by the young Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas stand out for their audacity, originality, ambition, and fragility. Born in 1980 in Rosario, Villar Rojas has completed installations around the world, for exhibitions as far flung as the Biennial of the End of the World in Ushuaia,
Foon Sham: Crafting Dialogs
One of the hallmarks of Foon Sham’s sculptural language is his ability to cultivate a fine line between the dictates of his materials and methods and the specific context of his work. Another, which has shaped his career both as a practicing artist and as a teacher, is his dual perspective on the importance of
Ken Lum: It Takes Me Back Somewhere
East Van Rules! Sound familiar? It’s a fair bet that at some time in our lives, we’ve all attached ourselves to a sporting club, organization, gang, or place and championed our membership or affiliation. Vive la Solidarité!
The Potency of Ordinary Objects: A Conversation with Liz Magor
Vancouver-based Liz Magor uses found materials, often from the domestic sphere, as a springboard for investigating the social and emotional life of objects. In mining their history, use, and relationship to the body, she molds, casts, and alters them to explore issues of authenticity, replication, consumption, waste, value, and status.
The Meditative Eye: The Sculpture of Ron Mehlman
If not enough has been written about the sculptures of Ron Mehlman, it might be because they absolutely insist on direct visual engagement. These contemplative objects fashioned from resistant elements (stone, steel, and glass) and combined with ephemeral ones (water and light) are best approached in silence.
Personal Histories: A Conversation with Do Ho Suh
Do Ho Suh’s Fallen Star is a 70-ton house teetering off the roof of the Engineering School at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). Living and working in New York, London, and Seoul, Suh has created a body of work that consistently addresses tension—between home and migration, individual and collective, reality and illusion.
Thinking About Things We Can’t See: A Conversation with Tony Cragg
From plastic bits of detritus orchestrated into almost-geometric form to meticulously choreographed, shifting compositions rendered in wood and bronze, Tony Cragg has turned sculpture on its ear. His work has pushed the medium in new directions, and his experiments with materials continue to evolve, expanding notions of sculpture’s unseen, inner energies and values.
Botero and Sculpture
Fernando Botero was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center in 2012. For a full list of Lifetime Achievement Award recipients, click here. Popular recognizability is Fernando Botero’s worst enemy, feeding the rejection of his work by many elitists who favor the age’s paradoxical taste for the smugly obscure combined with the profoundly superficial.
