Against Nature: The hybrid forms of modern sculpture
7 February – 4 May 2008
Exhibition in Galleries 1, 2 and 3
Sculpture has frequently been used as a medium of metamorphosis, its malleable materials allowing fantastic forms to become real as it mixes human, animal and vegetal components.
Installation view of Against Nature, showing (left-right) Thomas Theodor Heine's 'Devil' (1902-3, bronze) and 'Angel' (c. 1905, tin) Photo: Dave Morgan Installation view of Against Nature, showing (left-right) Thomas Theodor Heine's 'Angel' (c. 1905, tin) and 'Devil' (1902-3, bronze) Photo: Dave Morgan Installation view of Against Nature, showing (left-right) Hans Bellmer, 'The Immobile Hands' (1971, bronze); Julio González, 'Cactus Man II' (1939-40, forged and welded iron); Max Ernst, 'Lunar Asparagus' (1935, painted bronze); Isamu Noguchi, 'Strange Bird (To the Sunflower) (Unknown Bird)' (1945, aluminium) Photo: Dave Morgan
This exhibition begins in the late 19th century when many sculptors turned their back on classical notions of anatomy and used sculpture as a vehicle for the imagination. Against Nature presents a common fascination with the world of the hybrid across the various art movements of the 20th century, right up to recent years with the work of Louise Bourgeois.
Figures drawn from classical mythology - sphinxes, chimeras and centaurs - were the stock subjects of late 19th century Salon exhibitions. Meanwhile, outside the gallery, the pressures of industrialisation and of Darwin’s theory of evolution provided compelling new contexts for the hybrid.
To say that sculpture was ‘against nature’ at this time is to suggest two lines of enquiry: firstly that sculpture could create impossible beings that went beyond the natural order, but which evolution could potentially deliver; secondly, that sculpture presents absurd fantasy creatures by means of realistic modelling so as to suggest their ‘real life’ existence.
Despite the various positions of each successive avant-garde movement – symbolism, futurism, vorticism, constructivism, surrealism - fantasy sculpture and anatomical reinvention run across them all. Sculptors soon moved from taking on mythological subjects to inventing their own modern monsters, drawing on the machine as much as on myth, as with Jacob Epstein’s Rock Drill (1913-15).
This exhibition introduces little known sculptors from across Europe and the Americas and places them in a freakish family tree which also includes some of the ‘iconic’ images of modern sculpture. Thus the exhibition includes works by Hans Arp, Umberto Boccioni, Max Ernst, Julio González and Germaine Richier alongside Thomas Theodor Heine and Dimitri Paciurea. It suggests a new way of looking at the emergence of modern sculpture and at its underlying continuities c.1890s-1980s.
This exhibition is presented by the Henry Moore Institute in association with the Sculptuur Instituut, Scheveningen where it will tour from 16 May to 7 September 2008 and the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, Bremen where it will tour from 14 September to 23 November 2008.
Venue details
7 February - 4 May 2008
Venue address
Henry Moore Institute
The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 3AH
United Kingdom
T: 0113 246 7467
Opening times
Open 7 days a week, except Bank Holidays, from 11am to 5:30pm and until 8pm on Wednesdays.
Galleries are closed on Mondays.
16 May - 7 September 2008
Venue address
Sculptuur Instituut
Harteveltstraat 1
Den Haag
2586
Netherlands
T: +31 70 3589076
Visit website
Opening times
Monday: Closed
Tuesday to Sunday: 10am - 5pm
14 September - 23 November 2008
Venue address
Gerhard-Marcks-Haus
Am Wall 208
Bremen
28195
Germany
T: +49 421 98 97 52 0
Visit website
Opening times
Monday: Closed
Tuesday to Sunday: 10am - 6pm
Thursday: 10am - 9pm
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