The whole process of how to make a plaster sculpture

The spatiality of sculpture should be generally understood by the public. Sculpture is an art category that uses certain material materials and means to occupy a certain spatial position in a real three-dimensional space to create a visible static artistic image. From a purely physical perspective, there is no difference between sculpture and installation in terms of spatiality. But a work of art can never be the objective existence of a simple entity. As a sculpture, the volume of the three-dimensional space is the most fundamental thing in its artistic language, so the recess, protrusion, interval, fracture, penetration, and size of the work itself are one of the purposes of the sculpture. Although sculpture can also achieve conversion from three-dimensional to two-dimensional space, three-dimensional space is the root of its life, such as Henry Moore's exploration of pure spatiality. For installation art, the three-dimensional volume is a necessary media means for its presentation. It is just a carrier for certain thoughts and concepts. Therefore, it is meaningless to discuss factors such as volume, sense of volume, and rhythm that are extremely fundamental in the language of sculpture in installation art. Just like in Chinese painting, lines themselves have purposeful meaning, while in traditional Western art, lines exist more as a means. Sculpture, as a three-dimensional art that exists in three-dimensional space, is considered to be impossible to last longer than the performance time. But in fact, sculpture art does not completely reject the concept of time. However, since the sculptures themselves are mostly static, the time or movement they represent mostly comes from the social and psychological experiences and psychological feelings of the artist and the audience. For example, the ancient Chinese portrait stone "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" shows two plots of the story at different times in the same picture. For example, the raised hands and discus about to fly out in Miron's "The Discus Thrower", the flying wings in Cavanaugh's "Cupid's Kiss", Blair's "Hercules the Archer" and the ancient Indian statue "Shiva" The huge dynamics and time processes in "Dancing Bronze Statue". Just as Lessing discussed the "moment before climax" in "Laocoon": All objects not only exist in space, but also exist in time. Objects continue and can appear in every moment of the duration. They look different and are in different combinations. Such a momentary appearance and combination is the consequence of the previous moment's appearance and combination, and can also be the cause of the subsequent moment's appearance and combination, and thus becomes, as it were, the center of a moving factor. 2) If all these examples can only show the temporality of the psychological reception of sculptures, then in the 20th century, movable sculptures driven by mechanical or natural power and the use of sound, light, electricity and other principles to produce movement effects Sculpture actually makes the sculpture move in a physical sense. For example, Calder's "Three Red Lines", George Reese's "Column" and many movable sculptures by Japanese artists after the war. However, although they dissolve the non-temporal concept of sculpture to a certain extent, they are still clearly defined in the art category of sculpture because the temporality they present is in a non-linear mode. Existence has the characteristics of uncertainty, rather than the expression of narrative concepts. So regardless of the form of movement, what they ultimately point to is the sculpture entity itself. Because sculpture, a mature discipline, has its own meaning and regulations, the temporality in sculpture completely serves the aesthetic function or social function of the sculpture entity. The temporality of installation art is obvious and even inherent. The temporality of installation art is physically and psychologically integrated. For example, in Jeanne Anthony's "Eating Lard", the lard blocks slowly melt and collapse with the passage of time. This kind of movement is related to the movable sculpture. Movement is completely different. Movement in installation art generally has a certain order, purpose, and its own internal development logic, and this logic is generally narrative mode, and can even be plotted or dramatic. At the same time, it requires that the temporality of the movement of the work must coincide with the psychological process accepted by the audience, because in essence its movement is not subordinate to the entity in the work, but to better allow the audience to interpret the analyzable information implicit in the work. The idea, or process itself, is its purpose. Therefore, there is an essential difference between the two in terms of temporality. Material is the life of sculpture as a physical space art. The nature of the material itself is always more important than the external decoration. In the process of shaping the entity of the sculpture, the nature of the material itself is strengthened, purified, and characterized, thereby achieving a high degree of unity between the nature of the material and the entity of the object. In this process, the preservation of material characteristics has actually become one of the aesthetic objects. In other words, for sculptures, the material is the first, and the thinking it carries comes second. Especially before the 20th century, the geometric characteristics of sculptures and the physical properties of materials, such as density, opacity, hardness and other conditions, were the decisive factors. Even today, the development of science and technology has prompted the continuous emergence of various new materials, such as fiberglass, synthetic plastics, polyester resin, artificial marble, synthetic metals and even soft materials, such as Zhao Bowei's "Complete Fragment", Zhao Haibo's " "For an Unpleasant Thing" and Han Meilun's "Untitled", although their works broke through the unwritten principle of using only hard materials, they did not make the originality of sculpture materials more fundamental. In the final analysis, they are still an attempt and reflection on the nature of materials.

But for installation art, this principle does not exist. Installation art is generally guided by a specific concept and combined with performing art, body art, sound art, incidental art, process art, land art and many other art forms. There are many ways to express, and material form is the second factor, after concepts and ideas. In other words, the material requirements of the installation are only whether the use of a certain material can appropriately express the message that the artist wants to convey to the audience. . For these materials as carriers\media, there is no need to consider the significance of their volume, quality, texture and other factors, but only require that they be the carrier of a certain meaning recognized by public habits, and in this way achieve The purpose of thought guidance and dissemination. For example, hair and balloons are metaphors for sex, but rice cannot express them. Another characteristic of the use of materials in the creation of sculptures is the singleness of the materials. It is rare to use a variety of materials in the same sculpture. It is either marble, cast copper, plaster, fiberglass, direct metal, etc., which are relatively simple. Due to its own stipulations, installation art can use a combination of various materials without restraint. For example, in Boccioni's "The Development of a Bottle in Space", the entire work is made of bronze. The singleness and non-ready-made nature of the material and its chiselled nature define the sculptural significance of the work. If this work has a more installation feel, a ready-made glass bottle can be used in the work. Sculpture works usually use non-ready-made materials that can be carved. This is related to the language and purpose of sculpture art itself. What it needs is an implicit overall expression. If a variety of material combinations are used, it will cause confusion in the sculpture language. and dilution of the theme. Therefore, the singleness of the material is caused by the need for direct readability in sculpture art. Installation works usually use ready-made products that can be combined. Therefore, installation art is also called ready-made art. The extensive use of ready-made objects is related to the purpose of installation art. For viewers, objects that are used in real life are more interpretable. For example, in "Gil Peters" by Keith Edmeer, the plaster model was dressed in real clothes and even wigs. Chen Lide's "The Injured Bodhisattva" uses gauze to bandage the Bodhisattva's wounds. The use of different materials blocks the audience's normal aesthetic thinking, and naturally guides the audience's thinking in the direction of the concept that the author wants to express. If a single material is used, it will not be much different from ordinary sculptures. The purpose of conveying the concept of installation art cannot be achieved at all, or it will be difficult to achieve, or it will lead astray. In today's increasingly technologically advanced world, installation art is inherently sensitive to new materials, ranging from needlework to aviation equipment. As an art that shapes shapes in three-dimensional space, sculpture inevitably occupies a certain physical space and interacts with the surrounding environment. Human vision cannot only be connected with the sculpture work itself. The audience must set the work in a certain environment in advance to view it, because as a sculpture existing in a three-dimensional space, it is impossible to use a frame to combine the real world and art like a painting. The world is divided, and even a sculpture in an exhibition hall still has an environment in which it exists, that is, the exhibition hall and other works of art around it. Before making environmental sculptures or scene sculptures, the sculptor must take into account site factors in the integration of abstract ideas and empirical ideas. In other words, this type of sculpture is made entirely for the environment. Henry Moore said: "I would rather place my sculptures in a natural scenery, almost any natural scenery, than place them in even the most beautiful buildings." This is also true, such as his "King and Queen" ", is placed on the vast and desolate mountains of Scotland. The rights of the civilized era and the hazy chaos of the primitive era are integrated in nature. The inner unity of man and nature is appropriately expressed because of the fit of the environment. 3) Its overall effect as a sculpture is drawn into view. The sculpture environment has expanded with the continuous expansion of technology and media technology. Light effects have also intervened in the field of sculpture after the rise of OP art. Therefore, "the site or location determines the form of the work" (Klass Oldenburg), 4 ) Therefore, the environment has become one of the indispensable prerequisites for sculpture works, but it can always only be the premise, condition and background, and can never become part of the connotation of the work. It exists only to contribute to the audience's aesthetics and feelings. , which itself does not have any meaning. For installation art, the environment is not indispensable. Some installation art can exist completely independently of the environment and have its own meaning. For this type of work, the internal environment and compositional structure seem to be more important, such as Kabakov's "Total" installation and "We Lived Here". There is not much difference between these types of works, because they The purpose is simply to let the audience experience its interior space. Another type of installation art relies on the existence of the environment. That is to say, the environment has become a part of the work and has its own meaning, rather than just a background condition.