Sculpture exhibition looks at tech and celebrity
A NEW sculpture exhibition launching at Leeds’s Henry Moore Institute today focuses on the culture behind technology and celebrity and how both influence the society that creates them.
Berlin-based Aleksandra Domanović’s new commission brings together five years of work.
Her pieces explore technology, often looking to the former Yugoslavia, her country of birth, for inspiration.
Among the pieces exhibiting until June are her film Turbo Sculpture, where she examines the recent phenomenon of public sculptures in the former Yugoslavia which are dedicated to foreign celebrities such as Bruce Lee, Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur.
She has also recently been creating 3-D printed sculptures based on the Belgrade Hand – an prosthetic hand regarded as a key postwar advance in robotics.
Another display opening in September will concentrate on Mary Gillick (1881-1965). Called Mary Gillick: Her Art in your Pocket, it will run from September 20 to December 31.
Trained as a sculptor at Nottingham School of Art and the Royal College of Art, Gillick was renowned for bringing art to all.
In 1952 she won a competition that would see her art in the pockets of everyone.
Her portrait of Queen Elizabeth II became the image of the new Queen on all British and Commonwealth coinage until decimalisation in 1971.
This focused display is the first exhibition dedicated to Gillick’s sculptural practice, and presents plaster models, drawings and archival material showing her working processes for the design and manufacture of coins, medals and memorial plaques.
The archive of Gillick is held in the Henry Moore Institute Archive of Sculptors’ Papers.