Nasher Sculpture Center Handbook

Nash, Steven A. (Edited by)

with Nash, Steven A., and Thistlethwaite, Mark (Ess

Nasher Sculpture Center

Tony Cragg has been widely hailed as one of the leading sculptors of our time. From 1979-the year of his first solo exhibition-to the present, his work has received exceptional recognition, and the artist has been bestowed with the art world's most prestigious awards. Over the past decade, the momentum of recognition for Cragg has only accelerated, with numerous exhibitions, especially in Europe.  In the United States, Cragg's work has been avidly acquired by museums and private collectors-including Raymond and Patsy Nasher-while the pace of exhibition has been somewhat slower. Indeed, Cragg's last museum exhibition in this country took place in 1990.Tony Cragg: Seeing Things, organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center, seeks to redress that imbalance.  Featuring approximately 30 large- and moderately-scaled sculptures, the exhibition surveys the scope of Cragg's production over the last twenty years, including a selection of drawings, integral to the artist's process and rarely seen in this country.  During that span, Cragg has been engaged in an intensive investigation of the associative potential of sculpture.  His work is rightly lauded for its formal, thematic, and material diversity and draws upon the artist's broad intellectual interests in science, philosophy, history, sociology, politics, psychology, and poetry, as well as an intuitive and emotional response to form and material.The 2011 exhibition "Seeing Things" was accompanied by this lavishly illustrated catalogue featuring a new scholarly essay by Nasher curator Jed Morse.

Tony Cragg: Seeing Things

Unknown, Author

Over the past five decades, New York-based sculptor Melvin Edwards (born 1937) has produced a remarkable body of work redefining the modernist tradition of welded sculpture. Working primarily in welded steel, Edwards is perhaps best known for his Lynch Fragments, small-scale reliefs born of the turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement. Beyond the Lynch Fragments, Edwards' oeuvre encompasses larger sculptures, installations, public projects, drawings, studies and prints. Published on the occasion of a major retrospective originated by Nasher Sculpture Center, Melvin Edwards: Five Decades presents a richly illustrated examination of Edwards' career, featuring more than 90 works and numerous unpublished photographs from the artist's archive.

Melvin Edwards: Five Decades

Arts & Photography

Alex Potts

Tobias Wofford

History & Criticism

First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone is the first museum exhibition to present ancient handaxes and figure stones as works of art. Traditionally understood as the longest-used tool in human history, with examples dating back more than 2 million years, some handaxes are equally fascinating for their non-utilitarian, aesthetic qualities. First Sculpture will present these objects as evidence of the earliest forms of artistic intention, highlighting the aesthetic qualities of each stone and providing crucial historical and scientific information to give the viewer a deeper understanding of human history, as well as an enriched appreciation for humankind's early ability to sculpt beautiful objects. The exhibition's second focus, that of figure stones, suggests early human ability to recognize beauty and meaning in found objects. These naturally occurring stones possess evident shapes and patterns, including geometric forms, animals, and especially faces. Prehistoric people recognized these shapes, and augmented their mimetic qualities through additional carving. First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone is the product of a unique curatorial collaboration between Los Angeles-based artist Tony Berlant and anthropologist Dr. Thomas Wynn, Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated, scholarly catalogue published by the Nasher, with a central essay co-written by exhibition curators. Includes contributions by John Gowlett, Evan M. Maurer,Richard Deacon,Jared Diamond, Naama Goren-Inbar and V. S. Ramachandran © 2018 Nasher Sculpture Center Approx. 12 3/4 x 9 1/2 x 7/8 in. (HxWxD) 188 pages 84 color plates and 19 black-and-white illustrations Cover: hardcover with printed paper over board cover and an exposed spine

First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone

Tony Berlant and Thomas Wynn

Jared Diamond, Naama Goren-Inbar Richard Deacon

Evan M.maurer, V. S. Ramachandran John Gowlett

Over a career spanning more than six decades, Jean (Hans) Arp (1886-1966) produced a remarkably influential body of work in a rich variety of materials and formats, creating drawings, prints, books, textiles, collages, painted reliefs, and sculptures. Disillusioned by the destructiveness of World War I, Arp sought creative strategies analogous to processes found in nature, such as growth, gravity, decay, and chance. A founder of the Dada movement and a pioneer of abstraction, he developed a vocabulary of curving, organic forms that moved fluidly between abstraction and representation and became a common point of reference for several generations of artists. Accompanying a major retrospective organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, this publication offers a richly illustrated and deeply researched examination of Arp's life and work. Featuring more than ninety full-page color plates and numerous archival photographs, it reveals as never before Arp's contributions to modern art, the legacy of his commitment to an art drawing its inspiration from processes found in nature, and his embrace of interdisciplinary, collaborative means of expression. Essays by exhibition curator Catherine Craft and scholars Lewis Kachur, Walburga Krupp, and Tessa Paneth-Pollak explore Arp's wide-ranging, innovative body of work in relation to his forerunners and contemporaries, its subversive challenges to artistic convention, his response to two world wars, and his lifelong dedication to engagement with other artists, writers, and artisans. An introduction to the list of artworks assesses the state of research on the artist's complex oeuvre, and a biography and bibliography offer up-to-date references for understanding and appreciating Arp's extraordinary achievements.

The Nature of Arp

Catherine Craft with Lewis Kachur, Walburga Krupp and Tessa Paneth-Pollak

Sterling Ruby: Sculpture

Jed Morse

Exploring the recent sculptural innovations of prominent contemporary artist Carol Bove Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures presents an extensive look into the contemporary artist's work over the past five years and her ongoing exploration of scale, color, material, and artistic traditions of the twentieth century.&nbsp; &nbsp; Bove's recent work engages the conceptual concerns of mid-century sculpture, such as spontaneity, industrial materials, and the potential of painted sculpture. However, within this space of familiar sculptural traditions, Bove has discovered new approaches that lead to places previously unknown. Bove's "collage sculptures" are created from scrap metal and stainless steel that has been carefully worked into sinuous forms and are frequently painted. Considering the hard rigidity of the steel, the works possess an appearance of almost impossible softness, as if steel could become as pliable as clay. Such works range from small pedestal sculptures to large, imposing compositions. Bove's interest in scale and how a viewer's understanding of an artwork shifts depending on its context are explored through a selection of small works from the collection of the Nasher Sculpture Center. &nbsp; Published by the Nasher Sculpture Center, the catalogue features beautiful reproductions of Bove's work and an introduction as well as an essay by curator Catherine Craft on the development of the collage sculptures and their relationship to other artists and traditions of modern sculpture. Also included is an essay by Lisa Le Feuvre that explores Bove's complex work by means of a thematic alphabet related to the artist's interests.&nbsp;

Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures

Le Feuvre, Lisa

Craft, Catherine

Individual Artists

Mark Di Suvero: Sculpture in the Space of Ideas

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Books by Nasher Sculpture Center