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Shaping the world : sculpture from prehistory to now / Antony Gormley, Martin Gayford.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: London ; New York, NY : Thames and Hudson, 2020Description: 391 pages : illustrations (colour) ; 28 cmContent type:
  • text
  • still image
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780500022672
  • 0500022674
Subject(s):
Contents:
Preface -- Bodies in space -- Off the wall -- Mounds, fields & standing stones -- Trees & life -- Light & darkness -- Clay & modeling -- Voids -- The body & the block -- The age of bronze -- Bodies & buildings -- The Colossus & the slave -- Time & mortality -- Drapery & anatomy -- Actions & events -- Fear & fetishism -- Collecting & selecting -- Industry & heavy metal -- Shaping a changing world.
Summary: Sculpture is the universal art. It has been practiced by every culture throughout the world and stretches back into the distant past. The first surviving shaped stones may even predate the advent of language. The drive to form stone, clay, wood and metal into shapes evidently runs deep in our psyche and biology. This links the question 'What is sculpture?' to the question 'What is humanity?' 0 In this wide-ranging book, two complementary voices - one belonging to an artist who looks to Asian and Buddhist traditions as much as to Western sculptural history, the other to a critic and historian - consider how sculpture has been central to the evolution of our potential for thinking and feeling. Sculpture cannot be seen in isolation as an aesthetic pursuit; it is related to humankind's compelling urge to make its mark on the landscape, build, make pictures, practice religion and develop philosophical thought. 0 Drawing on examples from thousands of years bce to now, and from around the globe, the authors treat sculpture as a transnational art form with its own compelling history. They take into account materials and techniques, and consider overarching themes such as space, light and darkness. Above all, they discuss their view of sculpture as a form of physical thinking capable of altering the way people feel and of inviting them to look at sculpture they encounter and more broadly the world around them in a completely different way.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 730.9 G671 Available 33111010434054
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In this wide-ranging, thought-provoking and sometimes provocative new book, leading sculptor Antony Gormley, informed and energised by a lifetime of making, and art critic and historian Martin Gayford, explore sculpture as a transnational art form with its own compelling history. The authors' lively conversations and explorations make unexpected connections across time and media.

Sculpture has been practised by every culture throughout the world and stretches back into our distant past. The first surviving shaped stones may even predate the advent of language. Evidently, the desire to carve, mould, bend, chip away, weld, suspend, balance - to transform a vast array of materials and light into new shapes and forms - runs deep in our psyche and is a fundamental part of our human journey and need for expression.

With more than 300 spectacular illustrations, Shaping the World juxtaposes a rich variety of works - from the famous Lowenmensch or Lion Man, c. 35,000 BCE to Michelangelo's luminous Pietà in Rome, the Terracotta Warriors in China to Rodin's The Kiss , Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades, Olafur Eliasson's extraordinary Weather Project and Kara Walker's Fons Americanus , and Tomas Saraceno's ongoing Aerocene project, as well as examples of Gormley's own work.

Antony Gormley and Martin Gayford take into account materials and techniques, and consider overarching themes such as light, mortality and our changing world. Above all, they discuss their view of sculpture as a form of physical thinking capable of altering the way people feel, and they invite us to look at sculpture we encounter - and more broadly the world around us - in a completely different way.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Sculpture is the universal art. It has been practiced by every culture throughout the world and stretches back into the distant past. The first surviving shaped stones may even predate the advent of language. The drive to form stone, clay, wood and metal into shapes evidently runs deep in our psyche and biology. This links the question 'What is sculpture?' to the question 'What is humanity?' 0 In this wide-ranging book, two complementary voices - one belonging to an artist who looks to Asian and Buddhist traditions as much as to Western sculptural history, the other to a critic and historian - consider how sculpture has been central to the evolution of our potential for thinking and feeling. Sculpture cannot be seen in isolation as an aesthetic pursuit; it is related to humankind's compelling urge to make its mark on the landscape, build, make pictures, practice religion and develop philosophical thought. 0 Drawing on examples from thousands of years bce to now, and from around the globe, the authors treat sculpture as a transnational art form with its own compelling history. They take into account materials and techniques, and consider overarching themes such as space, light and darkness. Above all, they discuss their view of sculpture as a form of physical thinking capable of altering the way people feel and of inviting them to look at sculpture they encounter and more broadly the world around them in a completely different way.

Preface -- Bodies in space -- Off the wall -- Mounds, fields & standing stones -- Trees & life -- Light & darkness -- Clay & modeling -- Voids -- The body & the block -- The age of bronze -- Bodies & buildings -- The Colossus & the slave -- Time & mortality -- Drapery & anatomy -- Actions & events -- Fear & fetishism -- Collecting & selecting -- Industry & heavy metal -- Shaping a changing world.

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