Innovation at the Intersection of Metal Fabrication and Artistry: A Company's Journey to Redefine Sculpture
Innovation at the Intersection of Metal Fabrication and Artistry: A Company's Journey to Redefine Sculpture
Date：2024-01-05 11:10
Bringing industrial techniques like metal fabrication into the art world has intensified the innovation and experimentation that artists perform. Those artists have long since left the modernist pedestal behind and are doing all kinds of things with sculpture. Metal sheets and other materials are turned into art with the precision and control of an assembly line. Sculpture is thus being redefined, turbocharged by the kind of creativity that gives an impression of limitless possibility. The result is visually stunning work that can command attention in any space, quiet or loud, and resonate with the function of the piece that exists even in its pure, spectacular form.
Sheets of metal that long served as a sign of industrialization are now being turned into elaborate works of art that question traditional art forms. The artists who create these works use several techniques—mostly cutting, bending, and welding—to make their linear marks in the metal. What they accomplish, with seeming contradictions, is to take metal's brilliant surface and make it appear soft. No one should confuse the works made of metal sheets with contemporary assemblage, a three-dimensional art form made from various materials and sometimes used as a vehicle for social commentary. At the same time, the works in question do bring contemporary metal art into dialogue with established forms.
Our approach focuses on the seamless union of two complementary elements: skill and imagination. The metal sculptures we create are the results of synergistic efforts—collaborations, really—between seasoned metalworkers and visionary artists. Each piece begins with the metalworkers imparting a solid foundation of know-how and principle. They handle the material with such dexterous intimacy and unerring accuracy that it's tempting to assert they could do the work blindfolded. In truth, the work is so smart—so practically smart, and so imaginatively smart—that it's doing with the tools of the trade what metalworkers in previous eras may well have wished they could do with their hands alone.
The most recent collection displays the metal's potential as an art medium. Pieces range from to the truly representational and each one offers a different interpretation of the form of metal sculpture. The surfaces are where the real stories lie. And much as with a painting, when it comes to seeing a sculpture made of metal, lighting is crucial. Seeing the piece poorly lit is like seeing it poorly painted or with the incorrect formula of colors. I know I've talked about it before, but when I see more than one metal piece in a collection, I can't help but derive a similarity badge among them. Every piece might be different, with no two works being the same, but every work being shown is truly beautiful.
Our mission centers on the innovation of push, which is not even a secure concept itself anymore. We are less safe as an art form, in part because we have legislative and administrative threats to our funding source, the National Endowment for the Arts—the first time in my memory that sculpture can be said to be under fire. In response, should we make even more of an effort to find the new and better ways we serve artists and audiences?
We are working with engineers and technologists to probe the potential of responsive systems and smart materials in our sculptures. These go to create basic elements of interactivity—responsive shifts in light or temperature, or even the simple act of a viewer's presence—that give the works a participatory quality in the environment. They allow the art to have a basic conversational quality in the space it inhabits, and they achieve this in ways that are novel and sometimes quite subtle. Indeed, such innovation can seem at times like a sly hand move if one looks at the basic premise behind many modern art installations, but it isn't any sort of trick. It is part of the work and its intention.
When we look ahead, ecological concerns—especially related to sustainability—appear more prominent than ever. People across the country are contemplating their environmental impacts and working collectively to lessen them. There's a push to use recycled materials, for instance, and to create works in energy-efficient ways. And there's a lot of intriguing research going on into the use of biodegradable metals in art. The word "compromise" does not come up in these conversations, and rightly so. It should not be necessary to discuss the idea of compromising when contemplating how to make breathtaking art that doesn't also make a breathtaking mess of our planet.
We are in a constant state of evolution, just as the company that art director and designer David Kelley started in his Stanford University basement more than 40 years ago. Any object created by Ideo conveys with near-rhetorical precision its intent. That’s to say, we not only get signals; we also get signs that tell us what it “means” to be a company that, in Kelley’s words, has “create[ion] at the core of its being.” And if Kelley's work didn't "speak" in that way, I think we could always count on Kelley's having the last word.
Sheets of metal that long served as a sign of industrialization are now being turned into elaborate works of art that question traditional art forms. The artists who create these works use several techniques—mostly cutting, bending, and welding—to make their linear marks in the metal. What they accomplish, with seeming contradictions, is to take metal's brilliant surface and make it appear soft. No one should confuse the works made of metal sheets with contemporary assemblage, a three-dimensional art form made from various materials and sometimes used as a vehicle for social commentary. At the same time, the works in question do bring contemporary metal art into dialogue with established forms.
Our approach focuses on the seamless union of two complementary elements: skill and imagination. The metal sculptures we create are the results of synergistic efforts—collaborations, really—between seasoned metalworkers and visionary artists. Each piece begins with the metalworkers imparting a solid foundation of know-how and principle. They handle the material with such dexterous intimacy and unerring accuracy that it's tempting to assert they could do the work blindfolded. In truth, the work is so smart—so practically smart, and so imaginatively smart—that it's doing with the tools of the trade what metalworkers in previous eras may well have wished they could do with their hands alone.
The most recent collection displays the metal's potential as an art medium. Pieces range from to the truly representational and each one offers a different interpretation of the form of metal sculpture. The surfaces are where the real stories lie. And much as with a painting, when it comes to seeing a sculpture made of metal, lighting is crucial. Seeing the piece poorly lit is like seeing it poorly painted or with the incorrect formula of colors. I know I've talked about it before, but when I see more than one metal piece in a collection, I can't help but derive a similarity badge among them. Every piece might be different, with no two works being the same, but every work being shown is truly beautiful.
Our mission centers on the innovation of push, which is not even a secure concept itself anymore. We are less safe as an art form, in part because we have legislative and administrative threats to our funding source, the National Endowment for the Arts—the first time in my memory that sculpture can be said to be under fire. In response, should we make even more of an effort to find the new and better ways we serve artists and audiences?
We are working with engineers and technologists to probe the potential of responsive systems and smart materials in our sculptures. These go to create basic elements of interactivity—responsive shifts in light or temperature, or even the simple act of a viewer's presence—that give the works a participatory quality in the environment. They allow the art to have a basic conversational quality in the space it inhabits, and they achieve this in ways that are novel and sometimes quite subtle. Indeed, such innovation can seem at times like a sly hand move if one looks at the basic premise behind many modern art installations, but it isn't any sort of trick. It is part of the work and its intention.
When we look ahead, ecological concerns—especially related to sustainability—appear more prominent than ever. People across the country are contemplating their environmental impacts and working collectively to lessen them. There's a push to use recycled materials, for instance, and to create works in energy-efficient ways. And there's a lot of intriguing research going on into the use of biodegradable metals in art. The word "compromise" does not come up in these conversations, and rightly so. It should not be necessary to discuss the idea of compromising when contemplating how to make breathtaking art that doesn't also make a breathtaking mess of our planet.
We are in a constant state of evolution, just as the company that art director and designer David Kelley started in his Stanford University basement more than 40 years ago. Any object created by Ideo conveys with near-rhetorical precision its intent. That’s to say, we not only get signals; we also get signs that tell us what it “means” to be a company that, in Kelley’s words, has “create[ion] at the core of its being.” And if Kelley's work didn't "speak" in that way, I think we could always count on Kelley's having the last word.
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