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The emergence of 'New British Sculpture', 1977-1982

New British Sculpture, as it became known, dominated the international art world throughout the 1980s, following the public debut of a group of young British sculptors at the Venice Biennale in 1982. Shown at major art events such as Documenta, Bas/e, and the Sao Paulo Biennale, the work subsequently toured Europe, Japan, Australia and America, entering museum and private collections, and placing Britain firmly at the forefront of international artistic developments. This thesis focuses on how this grouping of sculptors, trained in the British art schools in the difficult economic and cultural climate of the 1970s, emerged in the early 1980s to become the dominant artists of the decade. In particular, the primary aim is to identify the processes through which they gained visibility and the various conditions and support systems that facilitated their emergence from the late 1970s, at a time when Italian and German painting dominated Europe, and Britain was recovering from an economic recession. Although much has been written on New British Sculpture, there is currently no study that critically examines the history of the construction of this grouping, its roots in the British art world of the 1970s and its emergence in Europe and America in the early 1980s.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:618841
Date January 2003
CreatorsLloyd, Frances
PublisherUniversity of Manchester
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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