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Dear members and friends,

I was lucky enough to attend the ISC?s 22nd International Sculpture Conference  in London April 7- 9 2010

What is Sculpture in the 21st Century?

A 3 day program including interesting visits to the Cass Foundation, East End galleries, the Tate Britain for Henry Moore?s current exhibition and a surprise visit and to Anthony Caro?s show at Annely Juda where we met the artist.

Many of the current issues concerning sculpture were addressed by prominent figures in the art industry including keynote speakers Anthony Gormley, Peter Noever & Lucy Orta.

Conference titles were

? Public Art / Public Purse ? But who?s the client?
? Sculpture In An Age Of Expanded Information
? Curating Sculpture
? Objecting to Objects: The Future of Dematerialization
? The Language of Sculpture
? Out of Darkness: Light as Public Art
? A Changing Landscape: Sculpture, Society & Environment
? The Challenges of Materiality ? Sculpture, Non-sculpture and the Academy

I would like to share some of the ideas I listened to, with the objective of provoking further consideration in your querying of sculpture. Just a few snippets which may provide food for thought and by no means a complete summary of the content there.

Purpose

? To be challenged by a ?thing? in space
? The need to tell stories
? Where does the human species fit in to the current project of things.
? Sculpture?s ability to change a place
? Sculpture ? a space of enquiry
? Making a difference

Historically

? 1920?s the key hinge to the current demise of ?embodiment? & the return of the repressed (referring to the human figure in sculpture)
? substance and appearance
? the Self embodied - the Self social
? constriction ? expansion
? the expanded field 30 years later

Relation to sculpture

? you become the connective relational factor of the work
? the viewer becomes the viewed
? the spectator becomes the subject of an indeterminate field ? the antithesis of the Cartesian relation to space

The Void After

? Installation or artistic intervention?
? sculpture should drive itself to its limits, transcend the past.
? If sculpture is the backbone of art, it must break its back to learn how to walk? lets say fly.
? architecture dissolves into sculpture
? mass ? energy

New technologies

? layered digital video
? video injects temporality to sculpture
? Guerrilla lighting
? Light as transmission network
? appropriate material for the context
? animated collages
? technology moves on as does the public?s expectations
? a potential for alchemy
? the long term outcome?
? to render the familiar unfamiliar

Time

? the temporary aspect is crucial to the value of the piece.
? to frame and reframe reality
? Temporary has the power to engage
? firefly on paper

The world

? Water rights
? the Holocene layer
? art and agriculture
? Anthropocene ? impact on the Earth?s Ecosystem

The future
 
? The most exciting projects are about participation. Situations in which experience? recodified allow us to engage ? metaphorical replaced by experiential.
? the importance of critique of sculpture to open discourse
? loss of ethical enquiry in art because of the market
? to have an effect, the artist should be at the heart of a multi-disciplinary team
? interdisciplinary triggers and enables.
? Artists should dictate together who we are ? not be told by a divided economically driven outside

Rural world

? rural cultural forum
? revisioning the future of the rural
? excess emphasis on the urban