ABSTRACT
Alexandre Melo discusses the pertinence of this exhibition within the local context, throwing light on the changes in American art of the two prior decades, work that was still largely unknown in Portugal. The chronological scope of this exhibition, taken together with the formal and issue-driven diversity of its contributions, has the advantage of introducing a certain breadth to our apprehension of contemporary American sculpture, and hence, also of sculpture in general. The exhibition begins with the historic group of artists that, in simple terms, might be labelled Pop, Minimal, and Conceptual. In their grouping and combinations, they constitute a significant aspect of “American” art and sculpture, and might, moreover, be pitted against “European” art and sculpture. Traditional sculpture has been linked to the symbolic demarcation of power through a physical punctuation of a space that was public or private, religious or secular. Modern sculpture brought into being the idea of sculpture as instituting its own space.
