20th Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition (2006-2007)

What has sculpture become?

Over the course of the last twenty years sculpture has become a more popular, widely discussed and accepted form of art making. It is now the most radical of arts since by definition it encompasses a wealth of approaches, styles, materials and formats. Where casting and carving were the skills associated with sculpture in the past, the definition of the activity would today include almost any action where three dimensional forms were employed. And its proponents no longer distinguish necessarily between figurative or abstract but look to work that somehow resonates with the time in which we are live.

There has been a kind of cultural about face when it comes to sculpture. It has lost much of its macho look and power, to be replaced by a range of approaches and attitudes that focus on the more conceptual side of art making and still brings to bear abstract and figurative ideals as well as architectural assumptions. The openness and freedom is at times overwhelming but it suggests a grand democracy in which all parts of the art equation must be equally considered and included.

With the emergence of environmental and site specific works in the 60s and 70s, the general growth of public art projects and budgets and the building of new museums and gardens the possibilities for sculptors and their vision has grown exponentially. At the same time the radical movements of the previous century whether in the area of Cubism, Futurism or Surrealism all had their sculptural side or hero from Picasso to Boccioni and Man Ray but today that sense of impending stylistic movements or identifiable historic periods has given way to very individual, very personal and at times national talents and responses.

The world has shrunk, or gone flat as the noted journalist Thomas L. Friedman has reported in his 2005 book and in proportion to this phenomenon the borders of style and culture have opened so that the crosscurrents of exchange are ever present. The studio, once the haven for work and ideas, can now be anywhere and production can be any place. The sculptor is a citizen of the world, a practitioner of a myriad of crafts and purveyor of numerous talents called to problem solve and then build.

The definition of what sculpture is has altered too; nothing is left outside the realm of possibilities when sculpture is concerned or sculptors are asked to become engaged with a site, a location, a gallery space or an institution. The emergence of installation works in the last decade as the sine qua non of contemporary art practice owes a great deal to the emergence and legacy of the alternative spaces of the 70s and the energy and passion of contemporary artists willing to build and then see demolished temporary installations. P.S. 1 in New York and 112 Greene Street became the role models for such endeavors in the days before commercial galleries existed or even presented new art. Such organizations, and they grew rapidly across the U.S., were the laboratories for the experiments which would lay the ground work for the creative explosion of the 80s and 90s. By the 80s sculpture was rich, broad, figurative or abstract but generally accepted. It was imagined in a variety of materials, whether these were wood, metal or steel or were inclusive of the developing technologies of video media and computers. In scale sculpture could be Lilliputian or Gargantuan--limited only by budget, skill and ultimately imagination. And most significantly sculpture was now something addressed to an international audience of collectors, critics and curators: German, English and Japanese artists sculptors such as Franz Erhard Walther, Tony Cragg and Tadashi Kawamata were suddenly showing in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas and American sculptors such as Mark di Suvero, Jonathan Borofsky and Jenny Holzer were being invited to present works in Paris, Muenster and Moscow.

In the decade of the 90s the equation of sculpture became politicized as the content of works addressed social, political and economic issues facing both the artistic community but also communities around the globe. The questions raised by the artist in their respective work or charging the audience to grasp as a result of the work. Race, gender and ethnicity were at the center of the dialogue and debate; the formal apparatus to express these ideas and explore these issues was not a pictorial one as had been in the past but had become sculptural one. Fred Wilson and Elaine Reichek for example, saw the means to this end in dramatic and prosaic installations which explored through objects both found and made the salient issues of their cultural backgrounds. And the political nature of art making and the art business continues to be of great importance especially to sculptors since their work certainly depends upon support from a broad and diverse spectrum of individuals working in either the public or private sectors.

In the first decade of the 21st century everything and anything remains possible.

The Turchin Center's sculpture program is a great example of this new almost ideal climate. The exhibition program is based on a strategy that thinks globally but acts locally. This 20th Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition and Exhibition serves to bring to the community, the region and the state examples of what is happening "in the field". The diversity of styles and approaches represented here reflects the wider and on going shifts that the interested viewer will find in galleries and museums across the country. It also illustrates very much what sculpture can be.