Set in the domestic space of a private loft in Shoreditch, this salon-style event was a unique opportunity to get up close and personal with sculpture today—to drill down into our shared understanding, to fracture outdated assumptions and to forge new knowledge about this field as it reconfigures itself within the broader context of global change.

True Or False was a curated conversation that interfaced a captivating panel of expert interlocutors with an eclectic and vocal audience. Artists Liliane Lijn and Toby Ziegler conversed with writer Ossian Ward and curator Elizabeth Neilson about sculpture as ‘Everything and nothing,’ as the Chair, Sacha Craddock, glossed the exchange. A no-holds-barred discussion ensued amongst all those in attendance. The idea of sculpture as a ‘frisson’ between man and ‘something’ and sculpture as a ‘condition’ – a literacy of sorts; sense/ sensuous knowledge – were two of the key ideas that chimed with PSC’s own thinking.

Discussion continued late into the night, surfacing issues for exploration in PSC’s future programming. We wondered: What is the value of sculpture in contemporary art practice? Is it a specialisation, a sensibility or both? Is there mileage in holding onto sculpture as an art form under post-conceptualism? What coalitions and compromises are reached across sculptors, critics, curators and other sculpture enthusiasts? Where is the friction between how sculptors perceive what they do and how it is received? What is the relationship between sculpture created in art schools and that trending at art fairs? What are the politics and practicalities of sculpture as an approach to cultural production?

Part of the On Your Marks season
Event 2, July 2013

Read the lightly edited but heavily abridged transcript here (page 8).
Reviewed by independent curator and critic Ellen Mara De Wachter here.