Sculpture

Anderson Ranch invites you to join our online community to participate in a stimulating and interactive Critical Dialog Program about the spacious world of contemporary sculpture, installation and performance. Through lectures, readings and discussions with leading contemporary artists, this monthly virtual course explores process, spacial considerations and community activations/engagements. Topics for discussion and exploration include maintaining inspiration within a studio practice, intentional materials choices and strategies for collaboration, participation and intervention. All are welcome to join us in this conversation. January 18 & 20, 2021 - Arthur Simms – An Artist in a Time of Isolation Arthur Simms tells his personal story of maintaining a studio practice while in isolation through using available resources and motivating himself to continue to develop a visual narrative through found objects. Arthur is best known for his found-object sculptures composed of everyday objects such as bicycle wheels, bottles, stones, chairs, rope and wire, his work connects the disparate elements of the diasporic experience. February 15 & 17, 2021- Kalup Linzy – Crossing Boundaries and Merging Media Kalup Linzy discusses how his work explores cultural identities, gender fluidity, and boundaries across various mediums—including video, performance, photography, collage, fashion, television, music, and film. March 15 & 17, 2021 - Cesar Cornejo – Social Practice and the Studio Cesar Cornejo addresses the relationship between the solitude of studio practice and the collaborative spirit of social based practice, focusing on how each feeds into the other and their particular challenges and possibilities when tackling larger problems like a global pandemic. April 19 & 21, 2021 - Kelly Taylor Mitchell – Sensory Installation and its Potential for Creating an Immersive Experience Kelly Taylor Mitchell discusses the elements of an installation that can entrench a participant in time, space, smell, texture and imagery to captivate both physically and emotionally. May 17 & 19, 2021 - Gracelee Lawrence – Digital Erotics: The Biocyborg’s Dilemma Gracelee Lawrence explores the notion of biocyborgism in the tensions between digital and physical materiality. Using the lens of the erotic, or being in relation to the unknown, the idea of biocyborgism is embodied in the fantasy or human evolution choosing soft rather than hard technology.

This two-week workshop focuses on exploring personal identity and storytelling through the creation of figurative ceramic busts. Students create life-casts of their heads and shoulders using plaster gauze. Clay is pressed into these molds to quickly create a clay replica of each student that is then used as the foundation for each student’s work. Class discussions on visual storytelling and idea generation lays the foundation for the work. Students are encouraged to explore topics of identity or life experience to create work that has personal significance or engages in topics that interest each person.

For 4,000 years humans have been making steel. Often associated with industry, strength and violence, this workshop seeks to challenge those intrinsic attributes. Students explore the alloy’s visual delicacy as well as its relationship with its aesthetic “opposites”—soft, vulnerable and unexpected materials. Exercises address both technical and creative inquiries regarding cutting, shaping and welding. One asks: What are the technical and conceptual assumptions we make when using steel? What happens when it becomes a secondary compositional element instead of a primary foundation?