From 12 October visitors to ARoS will be able to experience a comprehensive presentation of some 50 sculptures, all created over a period of time extending from the 1960s to the present. The exhibition is called Objects of Wonder – from Pedestal to Interaction and aims at motivating audiences to raise their eyes from their digital devices in order to rediscover themselves and their surroundings in a bodily and physical reality.
Scandinavia cannot boast a long tradition of sculpture exhibitions, but sculpture has a huge potential both artistically, culturally and socially. It is precisely this potential that we wish to present at ARoS with a display entirely dedicated to sculpture. The exhibition will feature a selection of thought-provoking and sensuous sculptures generously made available to us by Tate, says Erlend G. Høyersten, museum director, ARoS.
A word on the history of sculpture
Historically sculpture is a tribute to exalted social status. However, the advent of modernism in the early 1900s gave rise to widespread change, which particularly affected sculpture from the 1960s onwards. Sculpture has climbed off its pedestal for good and got down to equal democratic interaction with the viewer. Virtually anything can now constitute art or be termed art. From mass-produced iron pipes to the air above Paris, from live animals and the artist's own excrement to the more intangible media such as performance and video. The history of sculpture has adopted these notions, becoming a site for the boundless exploration of objects from everyday life and all the references to consumption, desire, beauty, terror and recognition inherent therein. In the latter half of the 1900s, the numerous experiments in form and material evolve into event-oriented sculptural works which involve the audience as active co-creators.
Bodily and sensuous staging
Objects of Wonder – from Pedestal to Interaction includes a wide range of works that vary not only in terms of their physical dimensions and dates but also as regards the materials from which they are made. Some of the headliners include artists like Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas. What they all have in common is that they create sculptural artwork, their approach being either figurative or formalistic. A case in point is Donald Judd, whose artwork experiments with the relationship between negative and positive space.
The works are orchestrated into a bright and optimistic expression, itself a total installation, which aspires to challenge and rethink the relationship between space, art and observer.