The International Sculpture Center is proud to present the winners of the 2017 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Awards. This year’s program attracted a large number of nominees from university sculpture programs in North America and abroad.
Archive
International Sculpture Day 2017
Monday, April 24, marked the third International Sculpture Day, and the celebration was bigger and better than ever. The International Sculpture Center reported that more than 600 organizations and individuals participated and that there were 5,000,000 impressions on social media.
Dylan Mortimer: Working Faith
Dylan Mortimer is both an artist and an active Christian pastor, but just where one identity begins and the other ends is difficult to tell. He mixes Christian iconography with pop culture to create glitter-covered relief sculptures, more reminiscent of neon casino signs than church altarpieces.
Driven by the Body: A Conversation with Malcolm Cochran
In 1992, while I was an undergraduate focusing on sculpture at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, I helped to install Malcolm Cochran’s In Maine (1989) in the galleries. The work consisted of, among other things, the still-operating guts of 19 refrigerators.
Tal Hwa Goh: Indeterminate Order
Contemporary art by Asian artists in New York occupies an often marginal position in relation to the mainstream. In the ’90s and early aughts, Chinese art captured the attention of the New York art world, but its moment is now over.
Gabriel Dawe: Light Threads
The Toledo Museum of Art’s classically inspired Great Gallery, home to a muscular collection of Baroque masterworks by artists such as Rubens and Poussin, might seem a daring place to install a massive contemporary fiber art installation.
Akio Takamori
SEATTLE James Harris Gallery The works in Akio Takamori’s recent show revealed a strangely somber and perplexing side to this usually exuberant ceramic artist, examining the rituals of male public behavior. These were the last works that he produced before succumbing to a long bout with cancer last year. Idio – syncratic and characterized by masterful technique, Takamori’s work is also known for a perilous awkwardness, which often doubles as self-examination.
Whitney Biennial 2017
NEW YORK Whitney Museum of American Art Smaller and more diverse than in years past, this year’s Whitney Bien – nial featured the work of 63 artists spread across two floors, the stairwell, and lobby of the museum’s new Renzo Piano building. With few walls, high ceilings, and works hung together in separate spaces as if in mini gallery shows, the layout encouraged viewers to wander about almost as if they were at an art fair.
Christian Benefiel
WASHINGTON, DC Flashpoint Gallery In Christian Benefiel’s recent exhibition, three large sculptures filled a small, elongated space. Each work, created of interwoven pieces of wood, was held together through the strength of the intricate con – nections linking its individual parts. Benefiel sees his constructions as a physical means of addressing the interactions of singular elements in complex systems, whether social systems ( societies and governments) or biological ones (organisms both simple and complex).
Made in the Middle: Art and the Crossroads of Kansas City
In many ways, the story of art in Kansas City is a familiar one – adventurous and untamed, with a rogue determination that lingers as a holdover from the days of the Wild West. Artists are trailblazers.
