Thinking is Making

Book excerpt: The sculptural object has spent much of the recent past being made to disappear from view. The word sculpture might still carry connotations of weight, scale and material, yet none of these things may necessarily be present in any particular work. Whether lost into a void, left behind in an expanded field or exploded to occupy the architectural space that once simply contained it, the sculptural object as the flotsam of an artist's engagement with process and materials, seems to have been in a continual state of crisis since first becoming detached from its plinth. As for the sculptor, the artist as maker, they can often be seen performing as magician, orchestrating events and actions which culminate in the object of our desire, the decorative assistant, simply vanishing from the stage. This book questions both the presence and absence of the object and its maker within contemporary British sculpture.