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Article: Freeing the figure. (American figurative sculpture, traveling exhibition)
- Article from:
- Art in America
- Article date:
- April 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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For most of this century, depiction of the human figure has been overshadowed by abstraction. This has been particularly evident in sculpture, which seemed to relish modernism's breakaway from equestrian monuments and heroic statuary. Recent works by artists such as Kiki Smith, Alison Saar, Robert Gober, Charles Ray and Paul McCarthy, however, have shown the enduring appeal of the human body as potent subject matter.
Although affinities with figurative sculpture of the '90s are not part of its outlined agenda, a surprising exhibition of 20th-century figurative sculpture from before World War II reveals the roots of such contemporary work in the socially and ...