Surveying the last 100 years of art by medium is a bit like a survey by national origin—after midcentury such categories are pretty arbitrary. In the case of sculpture, which seems to subsume everything that isn’t flat—and some things that are—the problem is monumental indeed. The Walker show proposes three overriding issues: the evolution of the pedestal, the Conceptualist and Minimalist trend, and the emergence of sculpture as social discourse. Organized by chief curator Richard Flood, the exhibition culminates with “Sculpture on Site,” a section devoted to works by local artists who focus on “issues pertaining to shelter and mobility”—which would seem to broaden the category of sculpture even further, to include the domains of architecture and transportation.
