Soft sculpture(s)

In this series, Virginie Mamet, an art historian, will explore the field of “soft sculpture”. The term “soft” designates here the material nature of the work, although the state of mind within which it is created might better be described as “flexible”.

From the late 1960s onwards, sculpture partially abandoned its erective aspirations and turned to concerns with horizontality, gravity, and the intrinsically malleable and organic character of certain materials. The framework in which it operates expanded to include the environment, performance, participation and therapy.  

The exploration of new materials (textiles, latex, rubber, etc.), as well as of these new areas of work, will be undertaken by female artists who discover new potentialities for expression. Particular attention will be paid to the major role of these artists and to the wide variety of “soft” sculptures.  

The cycle is structured in four parts:  

– Soft sculpture and textile arts: a female reappropriation (Annie Albers, Sheila Hicks, Tap-ta, etc.)
– Post-minimalist sculpture: Anti-Form and Eccentric Abstraction (Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Roberts Morris, Keith Sonnier, etc.) 
– Sculpture “in the Expanded Field”: towards environmental, performative and participative practices (Joseph Beuys, Heidi Bucher, Franz Erhard Walther, etc.) 
– Flexible sculpture as a vector of links: therapeutic and relational field (Lygia Clark, Annette Messager, Rebecca Horn, etc.)

Virginie Mamet is an art historian, graduate and associate of the ULB. Since her dissertation on Le rapport au corps dans les sculptures textiles souples de Tapta Wierusz-Kowalski (The relationship to the body in the flexible textile sculptures of Tapta Wierusz-Kowalski), her research has focused on textile art. Attached to the cultural mediation service of the MrBAB, Virginie Mamet also works for institutions such as the ISELP, the WIELS, the Museum of Ixelles,…