Beyond Modern Sculpture: the Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of the Century

Title Page......Page 1
Cover Page......Page 3
Publication Info......Page 4
Acknowledgements......Page 5
Key to Reference Bibliography......Page 6
Preface......Page 7
Contents......Page 11
Inner Cover......Page 13
Form and Indecision......Page 15
Reification......Page 20
Object and System......Page 24
Part One - Sculpture as Object......Page 31
Functions of the Sculpture Base......Page 33
Works by Four Early Modern Sculptors......Page 35
The Base as Anti-Base......Page 42
Constantin Brancusi......Page 44
The Constructivists......Page 48
Postwar Withering of the Base......Page 52
Floor-Bound Sculpture......Page 54
Air-Borne Sculpture......Page 58
Organicism as an Evolving Creed......Page 63
The Mechanist Versus Vitalist Dispute......Page 70
Bergson: The Poetics of Vitalism......Page 79
Read, Focilon, and the Aesthetics of Neo-Vitalism......Page 82
Motives and Analyses of Five Vitalist Sculptors......Page 93
Vitalism in Postwar American Sculpture......Page 114
Vitalism and Artistic Values......Page 122
Formalism in Sculpture......Page 124
Attitudes: The Scientific Demiurge......Page 126
Invention in Sculpture......Page 134
The Scientific Model......Page 139
Mathematical Influences......Page 146
Space, Scale, and Structure......Page 162
Optical Properties of Sculpture......Page 173
A Resume......Page 181
Academicism in Modern Sculpture......Page 182
Pure Form Becomes Pure Experience......Page 186
Part Two - Sculpture as System......Page 197
A Continuum of Images......Page 199
Egyptian Proto-Automata......Page 202
Greek Ritual: Orgiastic and Mechanical......Page 203
Clockwork Men Before the Enlightenment......Page 207
Mechanistic Aspirations in the Age of Reason......Page 210
The Sociology of Modern Automata......Page 214
Subsculpture in Modern Art......Page 220
Mechanization and the Artistic Sensibility......Page 232
Early Stages of Kineticism......Page 238
Precursors of the New Tendency......Page 252
The New Tendency and Field Kinetics......Page 261
Theory and Practice in the Kinetic Revival......Page 276
Emitted Light in Art......Page 299
Postwar European Exploration of Light......Page 307
Recent Use of Light in American Art......Page 316
The Future of Light as an Art Form......Page 322
The Cybernetic Changeover......Page 326
Mock Robots as Sculpture......Page 334
The Cybernetic Organism as an Art Form......Page 345
The Future of Responsive Systems in Art......Page 373
A Teleological Theory of Modern Sculpture......Page 384
Reference bibliography......Page 393
List of Illustrations......Page 403
Index......Page 409