Unmonumental

The Object in the 21st Century

Laura Hoptman, Richard Flood, Massimiliano Gioni, Trevor Smith

Unmonumental unveils a signficant recent development in art that takes the definition of sculpture as an autonomous object and shatters it to pieces. Rather than cast or carved, these sculptures have been cobbled together from bits of the world at large. They are of their moment, making gentle or high mockery of a wide range of art histories, from Russian Constructivism to 1980s appropriation art. Far from paying tribute to received notions of the courageous, they are patently anti-heroic. In short, they are a metaphor for our times.

Selected by the curatorial team at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the work in Unmonumental includes some of the most energetic and provocative sculpture being made today. Most of it has never before been published. Artists include Alexandra Bircken, John Bock, Carol Bove, Martin Boyce, Tobias Buche, Carlos Bunga, Tom Burr, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Aaron Curry, Sam Durant, Urs Fischer, Claire Fontaine, Isa Genzken, Rachel Harrison, Elliott Hundley, Gabriel Kuri, Jim Lambie, Nate Lowman, Sarah Lucas, Matthew Monahan, Kristen Morgin, Manfred Pernice, Anselm Reyle, Marc Andre Robinson, Eva Rothschild, Lara Schnitger, Gedi Sibony, Shinique Smith, Nobuko Tsuchiya and Rebecca Warren.