The facetious remark from the ’50s (often attributed to Ad Reinhardt), that sculpture is what you bump into when you back up to see a painting, said something important about modern art. The notion that objects can and should be exhibited in the middle of a space is relatively new: until the demise of Neoclassicism, it had been standard practice to place sculpture against walls, in niches, or under arcades. One of the main reasons sculpture began moving about freely, and became an obstacle, was the modern love affair with things that shock and rebuff. When an object is isolated in space, it is