The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics
21 July – 23 October 2016
Exhibition in Galleries 1, 2 and 3
Throughout history human beings have sought to extend and supplement their own form to move faster and reach further. The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics traces how artists have addressed radical changes to the very thing we humans know best: our bodies.
Painted metal facial prosthesis attributed to Anna Coleman Ladd (1878-1939), made in France, 1917-1920 Courtesy of the Antony Wallace Archives of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons Stuart Brisley, 'Louise Bourgeois' Leg' (2002, Performance Object - plaster, ironing board, wood) Courtesy of the Artist and Hales London New York © the Artist. Photo: Andy Keate Yael Bartana, 'Entartete Kunst Lebt' (2010, video still) Courtesy of Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam, and Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Louise Bourgeois, 'Henriette' (1985, bronze, hanging piece) Courtesy Hauser & Wirth and Cheim & Read © The Easton Foundation / VAGA, New York / DACS, London 2016. Photo: Christopher Burke
Presenting over seventy artworks, objects and images spanning the late-nineteenth century to the present day, this exhibition explores how sculpture and medical science have augmented the analogue human figure, expanding its reach and power.
Outside the Henry Moore Institute, on the city's busiest thoroughfare, is a sculpture made for the exhibition by British artist Rebecca Warren, co-commissioned with 14-18 NOW: WW1 Centenary Art Commissions. As the artist describes the work, it is a weighty, raw bronze sculpture, mainly of legs made of extreme convexities of muscle, set on a rudimentary bronze wheeled platform, taking (or showing) one monumental stride.
During the First World War prosthetics technology rapidly advanced. As shattered soldiers became a familiar sight in public life after 1914, both artists and surgeons alike sought to remake what had been lost. Sculptors Anna Coleman Ladd and Francis Derwent Wood worked directly with surgeons, creating facial masks for soldiers injured in the trenches, with our display presenting two examples of these, while in contrast artists including Alice Lex-Nerlinger and Jacob Epstein show the horrors of the new machine-human.
Mackay artificial limb (c.1925) and Artificial arm and hand (1914) Franz West 'Adaptives' (Exhibition copies) from The Henry Moore Foundation on Vimeo. Franz West 'Adaptives' Franz West 'Adaptives' (Exhibition copies) from The Henry Moore Foundation on Vimeo.
Video credit: Karen Atkinson
Video credit: Karen Atkinson
Alongside examples of prostheses from the collections of the Freud Museum, Hunterian Museum, Imperial War Museum, Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds and the V&A, The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics features work by artists who directly address the relationship between sculpture and prosthetics. Prostheses recur in the life and work of Louise Bourgeois, with her work drawing on her own experiences and childhood traumas. A single leg (1985), named after Bourgeois' sister Henriette, is suspended in space surrounded by the body extensions of Rebecca Horn, Matthew Barney and Oskar Schlemmer, among others.
The full list of artists and makers included in The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics are:
Bruce Angrave (1914-83)
Matthew Barney (b. 1967)
Yael Bartana (b. 1970)
Blatchford
Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010)
Martin Boyce (b. 1967)
Stuart Brisley (b. 1933)
Anna Coleman Ladd (1878-1939)
Francis Derwent Wood (1871-1926)
Jacob Epstein (1880-1959)
Charles and Ray Eames (1907-78 / 1916-88)
James Gillingham (1837-1924)
Heinrich Hoerle (1895-1936)
Rebecca Horn (b. 1944)
Michael Kienzer (b. 1962)
Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957)
Alice Lex-Nerlinger (1893-1975)
MacKay
Horace Nicholls (1877-1942)
Walter Pichler (1936-2012)
Oskar Schlemmer (b. Germany, 1888-1943)
Hugh Steeper Ltd
Rebecca Warren (b. 1965)
Franz West (1947-2012)
Rebecca Warren's sculpture has been co-commissioned with 14-18 NOW: WW1 Centenary Art Commissions, supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England and by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport.
Venue details
Venue address
Henry Moore Institute
The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 3AH
United Kingdom
T: 0113 246 7467
Opening times
In response to the government's current Covid-19 guidelines, the Henry Moore Institute is temporarily closed until further notice.