In The Shape of Time, anthropologist George Kubler organizes a history of objects and ideas from the perspective of innovation, replication, and mutation from an original, a “prime object.” Such prime objects can’t be reduced to something else; they arise from deep needs, not fashion, and they are fundamental to their specific function. This notion of prime objects, as applied to the work of particular sculptors, describes objects with affinities but no resemblances; such objects are sui generis–entirely new and different things. Such work, accomplished without fixed approaches or settled, repetitive solutions to the same problem, is not directly involved with art history, the academies, stylistic trends, or market popularity. …see the entire article in the print version of March’s Sculpture magazine.
