Styles & Movements

Sculpture in the 80s

There is no single direction, school, or movement for sculpture made in the 1980s. Young sculptors working during this time eschewed any singular school or style in favor of a more casual and inclusive adaptation of eccentric forms. There is a shared effort towards experimentation and innovation and a tendency to expand the definition of sculpture and its activities—a trend which had been set in motion earlier in the 1960s and 70s with the soft sculptures of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen; the earthworks of Robert Smithson and others; the organic material of Eva Hesse; and—most of all—the groundbreaking use of performance and "social sculpture" by Joseph Bueys.

Contemporary sculptors ask us to look at the " thing " in such a way as to want to know more about it, including its sources, its history, its function, and its significance. The art object, like the word, is a subjective thing. It is open to endless discussion and dialogue. Sculptors in the 80s and today are likely to work with ephemeral materials like sulfur, water, and salt. They create installations, and they work in electronic media. Benefiting from the freedom granted them by earlier artists, sculptors of the 80s have a vastly enlarged repertoire and have felt free to crossbreed or hybridize earlier styles. Prominent examples include William Tucker's hand-modeled abstracted figuration; Anish Kapoor's minimalist polystyrene cubes and spheres, transformed by powdered pigment; and Judy Pfaff's three-dimensional Abstract Expressionism.

Other new materials available to contemporary artists—or materials which had not previously been used for modern sculpture—include fiberglass, used extensively by such artists as Tom Butter, and linoleum, used by Richard Deacon. In addition, the traditional media of sculpture—marble, steel, and bronze—were used with great innovation during the 80s.