Each day as I walk to my studio, I pass the figurative bronze work of Carl Milles. Eliel Sarrinen’s plan for the Cranbrook Educational Community has figurative bronze sculpture deeply integrated into the architectural site. For nine years I’ve looked at a sculptural form that is deeply unfashionable. Figurative bronze sculpture has a tenuous relationship with serious contemporary art. Our urban landscape is populated with a kind of figurative bronze “sculpture” that most decidedly is not “Art.” Think of the bronze old man reading a book on a bench, or the little girls playing. Given this forms problematic relationship to contemporary art, I thought it would perfect for examination. The images below are the result of my interest in the Cranbrook architectural site and this problematic space of kitsch/populous/figurate non-Art “sculpture.”
Example
Unattributed example of figurate bronze “sculpture” NOT by Elliott Earls