Sculpture: Assemblage and the Found Object
Lesson 1
11.11.03
Casey Freeman
caseyseawell@hotmail.com
I. Topic
Lesson that will explore the sculpture in its various forms;
additive, reductive ad assembled. Students will examine the
work of various assemblage artists. This lesson is the first in a unit
that will result in the creation of student-crafted assemblages.
II. Objectives/Expected Learner Outcomes
Students will understand the essential differences between additive, subtractive,
and assembled sculpture. Students will investigate both the origins and examples
of assemblage sculpture. Students will begin to think about the creation of
their own conceptual assemblage sculpture.
III. Standards of Education
VA SOLS:
AI. 6 The student will produce works of art that demonstrate an understanding
of two-dimensional and three-dimensional art media with emphasis on drawing,
painting, and sculpture.
AI. 15 The student will identify features of a work of art that influence
meaning, including media, subject matter and formal choices.
AI. 31 The student will speculate on the intentions and choices of those who
created a work of art.
National SOL:
2C: Students create artwork that uses organizational principles and functions
to solve specific visual arts problems.
IV. Student Group Targeted
Art I: 3-D design class
V. Time Required
One 90-minute class period
VI. Materials and Resources
Newspaper
Masking Tape
Elements and Principles of Design on slips of paper
Slides of the following artwork:
Arman (Armand Fernandez) End of Romanticism, 1973 Accumulation of Pitchers,
1961
Raoul Hausman The spirit of our times, 1919
Nevelson, Louise Mirror, 1959 Time to Spare, 1944 Royal Tide IV Ten Boxes
and One Base, 1959-64 Clown Tightrope Walker, 1942 Moon Garden Reflections,
1957
Alfonso Ossorio Range
Lucas Samaras #108, 1982 Box, untitled Wire Hanger Chair, 1986 Wire hanger
Chair (Bride and Groom) 1986 Chair Transformation
VII. Itinerary and Strategies
1. Begin by separating students into groups of 3-4. Count off around the classroom
so that the groups are mixed, in order to get students out of their comfortable
peer groups.
2. Once they are in their groups give them the assignment. They are the spend
twenty minutes building a structure as high as they can using only newspaper
and tape. Time this activity, give them no more instructions and allow them
to solve their own structural problems.
3. After the twenty minutes, walk around and ask each group to share their
work, ask them what challenges they faced.
4. Have each group select a “element or principle” from the hat,
ask the groups to rearrange their newspaper tower into a new piece which exemplifies
this element or principle, they have to completely rearrange the structure,
they have ten minutes for this.
5. Allow them to share their work with the class.
6. Next ask them to take something away from the original piece which changes
it’s meaning.
7. Next, put two groups together; ask them to combine their two pieces into
a new piece, while allowing each piece to retain its original quality. Allow
five minutes.
8. Then ask two of the combined groups to join their work until all of the
groups have created one larger piece.
9. Bring the evaluation of this piece into the idea that sculpture can be
additive, reductive or
assembled;
- Sculpture: A sculpture is a three-dimensional work that is modeled, carved
or assembled.
- Modeled: sculpture that is considered additive, meaning the object is built
up from a material such as clay that is soft enough to be modeled or shaped
- Carved: sculpture that is reductive in the sense that the image is created
by taking material away.
- Assemblage: sculpture created out of related or unrelated materials assembled
together.
10. Discuss and define Assemblage as a form of sculpture,
Assemblage sculpture - A three-dimensional composition made of various materials
such as found objects, paper, wood, and textiles.
- Assemblage is a term invented by Jean Dubuffet, a French artist, in the
early 1950’s for works made of bits of things, two dimensional and three
dimensional. An exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1961
“The art of Assemblage” brought together a wide range of pictorial
and sculptural art to which the term could be applied.
Conceptual Art - art where the concept developed by the artist is more important
than the finished product
Found- object – referred to in art as an object incorporated into a work
o fart in an unaltered state
11. Show students slides of the following work, and allow for discussion of
the evolution of the found object in art:
Arman (Armand Fernandez) Born in France 1928, he took on a misprinting of
his name. The Accumulations were assemblages of everyday objects and similar
consumer articles displayed in boxes.
End of Romanticism, 1973
Accumulation of Pitchers, 1961
Raoul Hausmann, Austrian, political piece referring to the idea that humans
should model themselves on the machine, dummy’s head reminds us that
this idea is dehumanizing. Member of the Dada movement, an early twentieth
century art movement that ridiculed contemporary culture and traditional art
forms.
The spirit of our times, 1919
Alfonso Ossorio American artist born in 1936 in Greece, came to the US in
1948, Ossorio's work ranges from wall constructions to ink drawings. He has
also created freestanding sculpture incorporating feathers, bones, mirrors,
and bark. He described such works as "congregated imagery." Many
of his drawings and works of sculpture are regarded as surreal, referring
to dreams or the unconscious.
Range
Lucas Samaras Lucas Samaras was already known as a sculptor, painter, and
performance artist when he began experimenting with photography. In his early
work, which includes multi-media assemblages, he often included images of
himself. He notes that his last name, Samaras, means, "saddle maker"
in his native Greece. He recalls a Rauschenberg collage where the artist attached
an actual chair to a painting. He references chairs seen in movies, proverbial
chairs—like the "hot seat"—and games of musical chairs.
All of his references have in common one thing: an appeal, in some sense,
to a common idea of what a chair is. And here Samaras complicates our understanding
of that idea. Is it a chair if you can't sit in it? Is it a chair if it is
also a sculpture on display in a museum?
#108, 1982
Box, untitled
“
Wire Hanger Chair, 1986
Wire hanger Chair (Bride and Groom) 1986
Chair Transformation
Louise Nevelson, (1899-1988) Russian born American Sculptor, knew she wanted
to be as sculptor form a young age. A leading innovator in twentieth-century
American sculpture, Nevelson began making the powerful wooden constructions
for which she is best known when she was in her fifties. These sculptures
are typically made of stacked boxes filled with fragments of carved wood and
such found objects as furniture pieces and bits of architectural ornament
that she arranged into complex assemblages. She then painted these elements
one color—usually black—to unify them and obscure their original
identity.
Clown Tightrope Walker, 1942
Time to Spare, 1944
Moon Garden Reflections, 1957
Mirror, 1959
Ten Boxes and One Base, 1959-64
Royal Tide IV
During the discussion, ask some of the following questions:
Which elements and principles do you see in these works?
Do you think these are conceptual works?
What does it mean for the object to transcend the artwork?
How do the objects in the work help you to derive meaning?
12. Closure: Journal Assignment: Recount some of the themes we discussed in
class and brainstorm about your own conceptual assemblage, begin work on Thursday.
Assignment for Thursday: bring in your own found materials to contribute to
class
Time line:
Intro and group organization: 5 min
Sculpture exercise: 50 min
Discussion/Lecture: 25 min
Closure/Journal Assignment: 10 min
VIII. Evaluation Strategies
Lesson Component
Participation in Exercise
Understanding of Elem&Prin
Participation in Discussion
Participation in Group
Journal Assignment
Percentage
40%
10%
20%
20%
10%
Grading Scale
100 – 95 Excellent
94 – 90 Very Good
89 – 80 Good
79 – 70 Satisfactory
60 – 69 Poor
68 – 0 Failing
IX. Suggested Supplemental Activities
Next class study the work of Robert Rauschenberg and begin work on found object
assemblage.