The Sculpture Question

Paper presented, and subsequent panel discussion with: Jordan Baseman, artist and Head of Sculpture, Royal College of Art; Anna Moszynska, art historian and author, Sculpture Now; Emma Hart, artist; Jon Wood, Research Curator, Henry Moore Institute, and co-editor, Modern Sculpture Reader Chair: Terry Perk, sculptor and Reader in Fine Art and Associate Head of the School of Fine Art, UCA.

The Sculpture Question Research Group presents ‘The Sculpture Question’ conference in partnership with Folkestone Triennial and University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury, and is part-funded by Interreg IVA programme, a European Development Regional Fund initiative.

In a post-medium art world, the term ‘sculpture’ still has resonance and significance for artists who continue to align themselves with its histories and challenges. Yet over the last half-century the practice of sculpture has increasingly positioned itself in the realms of installation, architecture, performance and design, as well as more symbolically into social and political arenas. In these inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary contexts how might sculpture, as a discipline of fine art, continue to be taught and defined today?

Sculpture today is increasingly associated with the public realm, in which the competing agendas of artists, curators, commissioning agents, local and national authorities, funding bodies, and local and international audiences create a complex, ever-evolving web of meaning and responsibility. Sculpture is as likely to be found outside the gallery as in it, whether in sculpture parks, biennials, as temporary public projects, or as commissioned permanent works or monuments. In these often-institutionalised and formalised ‘public’ contexts, how might sculpture still be understood as radical, contrary or disruptive?

This conference will take the Folkestone Triennial as its case study, while looking back at significant historical precedents, such as Sculpture Projects Münster and Culture in Action. In these contexts, this conference will seek to argue that sculpture is always political and space is never neutral.

Introduction by Sir Peter Bazalgette, Chair of Arts Council England

Keynote speakers: Nicolas Bourriaud, Director of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and curator of Taipei Biennial 2014; Penelope Curtis, Director, Tate Britain; Mary Jane Jacob, Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibitions Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Independent Curator

Speakers: Amina Menia; Jordan Baseman; Claire Doherty; Anouchka Grose; Emma Hart; Anthony Heywood; Anna Moszynska; Terry Perk; Dominic Rahtz; Shelley Sacks; Iain Sinclair; Sarah Staton; Gilda Williams; Jon Wood

(Source: http://www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk/the-sculpture-question/)

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