The Break-Up of New British Sculpture (No. 45)

Description

'New British Sculpture' is a flexible term applied to a group of young artists working in the 1980s, including Edward Allington, Kate Blacker, Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Antony Gormley, Shirazeh Houshiary, Anish Kapoor, Alison Wilding, Richard Wentworth, and Bill Woodrow. Reacting against the previous generation of minimal and conceptual artists, the 'New British Sculptors' adopted a more traditional approach to art making.

In this essay Antony Hudek argues that 'New British Sculpture' deserves a wider reinterpretation. He calls for a reconsideration of the sculptors' original political context, suggesting that British sculpture from the 1980s merits attention for its timely critical representation of Thatcher's Britain and its postmodern 'cultural landscape'.