A unique collection of interviews with contemporary sculptors drawn from the 25-year history of Sculpture magazine, Conversations on Sculpture offers a valuable overview of three-dimensional art at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century. The 43 interviews in Conversations on Sculpture capture the wide-ranging possibilities that characterize contemporary sculpture. The book includes an introduction by Robert Hobbs, discussing the sculptors interviewed and also the value of the interview format in exploring contemporary art and artists. There are full-color illustrations throughout. The second book in the "Perspectives on Contemporary Sculpture" series from the newly inaugurated ISC Press, Conversations on Sculpture includes interviews with Richard Serra, Maya Lin, Richard Deacon, Wolfgang Laib, James Turrell, Xu Bing, Liza Lou, Mario Merz, Richard Tuttle, Maurizio Cattelan, and other prominent and emerging artists from the U.S., China, the U.K., Italy, Germany, Cuba, Argentina, Nigeria, Portugal, Brazil, Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands, Korea, Spain, and Ghana. The two volumes, A Sculpture Reader and Conversations on Sculpture, are an invaluable history of contemporary sculpture, installation art, new media, and public art.

“The rhythm of the body moving through space has been the motivating source of most of my work.”—Richard Serra Drawn from talks between celebrated artist Richard Serra and acclaimed art historian Hal Foster held over a fifteen-year period, this volume offers revelations into Serra’s prolific six-decade career and the ideas that have informed his working practice. Conversations about Sculpture is both an intimate look at Serra’s life and work, with candid reflections on personal moments of discovery, and a provocative examination of sculptural form from antiquity to today. Serra and Foster explore such subjects as the artist’s work in steel mills as a young man; the impact of music, dance, and architecture on his art; the importance of materiality and site specificity to his aesthetic; the controversies and contradictions his work has faced; and his belief in sculpture as experience. They also discuss sources of inspiration—from Donatello and Brancusi to Japanese gardens and Machu Picchu—revealing a history of sculpture across time and culture through the eyes of one of the medium’s most brilliant figures. Introduced with an insightful preface by Foster, this probing dialogue is beautifully illustrated with duotone images that bring to life both Serra's work and his key commitments.

In What We Made, Tom Finkelpearl examines the activist, participatory, coauthored aesthetic experiences being created in contemporary art. He suggests social cooperation as a meaningful way to think about this work and provides a framework for understanding its emergence and acceptance. In a series of fifteen conversations, artists comment on their experiences working cooperatively, joined at times by colleagues from related fields, including social policy, architecture, art history, urban planning, and new media. Issues discussed include the experiences of working in public and of working with museums and libraries, opportunities for social change, the lines between education and art, spirituality, collaborative opportunities made available by new media, and the elusive criteria for evaluating cooperative art. Finkelpearl engages the art historians Grant Kester and Claire Bishop in conversation on the challenges of writing critically about this work and the aesthetic status of the dialogical encounter. He also interviews the often overlooked co-creators of cooperative art, "expert participants" who have worked with artists. In his conclusion, Finkelpearl argues that pragmatism offers a useful critical platform for understanding the experiential nature of social cooperation, and he brings pragmatism to bear in a discussion of Houston's Project Row Houses. Interviewees. Naomi Beckwith, Claire Bishop, Tania Bruguera, Brett Cook, Teddy Cruz, Jay Dykeman, Wendy Ewald, Sondra Farganis, Harrell Fletcher, David Henry, Gregg Horowitz, Grant Kester, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Pedro Lasch, Rick Lowe, Daniel Martinez, Lee Mingwei, Jonah Peretti, Ernesto Pujol, Evan Roth, Ethan Seltzer, and Mark Stern

This publication focuses on a number of works that have recently received conservation treatment at the Tate Gallery in London. They were selected for their technical, as well as their art historical importance, and both these aspects are discussed.

"The rhythm of the body moving through space has been the motivating source of most of my work."--Richard Serra Drawn from talks between celebrated artist Richard Serra and acclaimed art historian Hal Foster held over a fifteen-year period, this volume offers revelations into Serra's prolific six-decade career and the ideas that have informed his working practice. Conversations about Sculpture is both an intimate look at Serra's life and work, with candid reflections on personal moments of discovery, and a provocative examination of sculptural form from antiquity to today. Serra and Foster explore such subjects as the artist's work in steel mills as a young man; the impact of music, dance, and architecture on his art; the importance of materiality and site specificity to his aesthetic; the controversies and contradictions his work has faced; and his belief in sculpture as experience. They also discuss sources of inspiration--from Donatello and Brancusi to Japanese gardens and Machu Picchu--revealing a history of sculpture across time and culture through the eyes of one of the medium's most brilliant figures. Introduced with an insightful preface by Foster, this probing dialogue is beautifully illustrated with duotone images that bring to life both Serra's work and his key commitments.

As the artist is more than his art, so this book is more than a collection of pictures. Here is the essence of Mexico's greatest living sculptor, reflected in his own words, in critical commentary, and in strikingly dramatic representations of his work. Part I, "Conversations," distills a series of exclusive interviews with Zu�iga that have never before been published. In frankly discussing his life and art, the sculptor lends fascinating and sometimes controversial insights into his society and cultural milieu. Part II, "Interpretations," offers Sheldon Reich's stylistic analysis of Zu�iga's work as it has evolved through various media over a forty year period. Highlighting this impressive volume are more than one hundred black-and-white photographs depicting the artist, his models, his studio, and of course his incomparable sculptures. Included are not only rare prints of projects that have been destroyed, but glimpses of unfinished pieces as well. Thus embracing past, present, and future, the book itself will stand as a monument to an artist whose own monuments inspire the admiration of millions.

Collected talks, lectures, and conversations spanning 1975-1995.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... VII. THE PORTRAIT. ANTIQUE art had immutable rules, even laws in regard to beauty. I have already spoken of the invariable divisions reproduced in Greek faces, it is useless to repeat them here. Your model has not perhaps the antique form of face, you rarely meet with it; the forehead forms with the nose two very different lines; between the -eye and the eyelid you have an enormous distance, the mouth is quite far from the nose, and you have a retreating chin. Something else is added to complete the want of resemblance; the ears are flat, the neck small and thin, and the whole scarred by wrinkles or other causes. All this is not beautiful, and you have now more than ever need of the rules which I gave you before; make all your forms and lines in accordance with that which constitutes beauty, keeping within the limits of truth, and you will obtain a result astonishing to every one. That which you put upon your canvas will be much less ugly than the model. There are in nature, as I have said, "individual characteristics which are charming. The features, and forms which give to every one a particular character, are what are necessary to respect; it is well even to develop them, and you can without fear reconcile this development to the corrections made according to the prescribed rules of beauty." Be careful not to give to your portrait, theatrical positions; be simple and modest in your pose, as in your expression; we ought to feel in symyathy with the portrait that we work upon. Give above all things, an air of gentility to what you represent. If a woman is your model, let her direct you. She knows well her best physical qualities. In the space of an hour, being face to face with the painter, she will show all her most beautiful points, ...