11/21/2023 0 Comments Philonese baisden plaster wall art![]() Firmly in this tradition is Philippe Anthonioz, who describes himself as a sculptor who makes furniture whether in plaster or bronze he finds no distinction between figurative sculpture and the making of more functional pieces. ![]() Part of the appeal of plaster lies in the liminal status that Giacometti and Roche both recognised: is it a material that should be used for art, for decoration, or for functional objects? Many of the iconic figures who redefined the limits of plaster over the course of the twentieth century, such as Giacometti and Serge Roche, refused to define whether they were artists or makers. He wasn't alone his contemporary Serge Roche produced fanciful lighting and furniture and plaster for his family's gallery in Paris in the middle of the twentieth century, inspired by eighteenth-century designs but with a surreal twist. It was a necessary intermediate material for the process of casting in bronze, but Giacometti loved the material for itself. It's an aesthetic that most viewers would instinctively link with the artist Alberto Giacometti, who regularly created both figurative sculpture and functional pieces of lighting and furniture in plaster. But plaster can also be applied by hand to a frame or model, a considerably looser approach to the material that yields rougher, more organic forms. When used in mouldings or for complex decoration on a wall, plaster must be cast in a mould, where its ability to expand, harden, and then contract slightly make it eminently suitable for the technique. We may be most familiar with plaster from its use in decorative mouldings or carved reliefs, which reached an apogee of ornament in the eighteenth century, but it has always had its more functional uses. Not that its fragility has stopped people trying to build with it. There are examples of plasterwork surviving 4000 years on the walls of Egyptian temples, yet if you were to try and eat supper off a plaster table, it would quite likely collapse beneath you. An unassuming mix of mineral dust and water, it is capable of being shaped into highly elaborate forms of decoration, and is remarkable for being both fragile and durable at the same time. For a humble material, plaster has a long and impressive story in the history of decorative arts.
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