Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Rachel Wells
Full text is not currently available for this publication.
Publisher's summary: The first book to devote serious attention to questions of scale in contemporary sculpture, this study considers the phenomenon within the interlinked cultural and socio-historical framework of the legacies of postmodern theory and the growth of global capitalism. In particular, the book traces the impact of postmodern theory on concepts of measurement and exaggeration, and analyses the relationship between this philosophy and the sculptural trend that has developed since the early 1990s. Rachel Wells examines the arresting trend of sculpture exploring scale, focusing on the work of the ‘Young British Artists’ and contrasting this with precedents from the 1970s and ‘80s. Noting that the emergence of this sculptural trend coincides with the end of the Cold War, Wells suggests a similarity between the single quantitative ratio of scale and the growth of global capitalism that has replaced the former status quo of qualitatively opposed systems. This study also claims the allegorical nature of scale in contemporary sculpture, outlining its potential for critique or complicity in a system dominated by quantitative criteria of value. Wells demonstrates that scale in contemporary sculpture can suggest the possibility of, and even an unashamed reliance upon, comparison and external difference in the construction of meaning.
Author(s): Wells R
Publication type: Authored Book
Publication status: Published
Year: 2013
Number of Pages: 203
Publisher: Ashgate
Place Published: Aldershot
URL: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409431947
Library holdings: Search Newcastle University Library for this item
ISBN: 9781409431947
