Sculptural Materiality in the Age of Conceptualism

<p><em>Sculptural Materiality in the Age of Conceptualism</em> is structured around four distinct but interrelated projects initially realized in Italy between 1966 and 1972: Yayoi Kusama’s <em>Narcissus Garden</em>, Michelangelo Pistoletto’s <em>Newspaper Sphere</em> (<em>Sfera di giornali</em>), Robert Smithson’s <em>Asphalt Rundown</em>, and Joseph Beuys’s <em>Arena</em>. These works all utilized non-traditional materials, collaborative patronage models, and alternative modes of display to create a spatially and temporally dispersed arena of matter and action, with photography serving as a connective, material thread within the sculpture it reflects. While created by major artists of the postwar period, these particular projects have yet to receive substantive art historical analysis, especially from a sculptural perspective. Here, they anchor a transnational narrative in which sculpture emerged as a node, a center of transaction comprising multiple material phenomenon, including objects, images, and actors. When seen as entangled, polymorphous entities, these works suggest that the charge of sculpture in the late postwar period came from its concurrent existence as both three-dimensional phenomena and photographic image, in the interchanges among the materials that continue to activate and alter the constitution of sculpture within the contemporary sphere.</p> <p>Introduction: Meshworks and Networks</p><p></p><p>Sculptural Materiality</p><p></p><p>Action and Circulation in Postwar Italy</p><p></p><p>1. Reflective Acts: Yayoi Kusama in Venice</p><p></p><p>"Sideshow" Sculpture<i> </i>and the XXXIII Venice Biennale</p><p></p><p>Photographic Mirrors</p><p></p><p>Self, Sculpture, and Photograph</p><p></p><p>Remnants and Residuum</p><p></p><p>2. With Time Action: Michelangelo Pistoletto in Turin</p><p></p><p>Mirror Images and Minus Objects</p><p></p><p>Con temp l’azione</p><p></p><p>The City as Material</p><p></p><p>From the Street to the Cage</p><p></p><p>3. Slow Dissolves: Robert Smithson in Rome</p><p></p><p>Exhibiting Process</p><p></p><p>The Flow of Sculpture</p><p></p><p>Photography is Action</p><p></p><p>The Age of Conceptualism</p><p></p><p>4. The Sculptural Arena: Joseph Beuys in Naples</p><p></p><p>The Mediterranean Situation</p><p></p><p>Transmitters</p><p></p><p>Between Image and Object</p><p></p><p>Sculpture as Multiple</p><p></p><p>Conclusion: Material Dispersions</p><p></p><p>Recreations and Replicas</p><p></p><p>Inert Monuments and Enlivened Objects</p>