First off, the great thing about art is that there are no definitions that hold for everyone.
You, and you alone, get to decide what you like, and what you dont, and who you think "deserves" the title of artist.
Anybody can make whatever they want, however they want, and call themselves whatever they want.
No registration boards, or licensing agencies, or trade organisations to tell you who "is" and who "isnt" an artist.
As far as large scale sculpture goes, there are always people who enjoy doing every bit of it themselves, and are justifiably proud of having done so.
They, naturally, do fewer, smaller sculptures than somebody who has help.
If you go back in history, you can find example after example, however, of things that are undeniably sculpture, and "art" that were not done by the artist alone.
The Statue of Liberty, Rodin's Gates of Hell, the Sphinx in Gaza, Michelangelo's David- all had "technicians" who helped the artist.
In Italy, for hundreds of years, the tradition has been for skilled stonecarvers to do most of the work on a contract basis. Many of the masterpieces in the books were done by teams of people.
Its really only in the postindustrial age that we have come to this idea that the work is somehow more authentic if the "artist" does it all- back in the day, it was an acknowledged fact that no one person could do it all.
Every movie shows one guy, be it Orlando Bloom or Hatori Hanza, making a sword from start to finish- never happened- swords had one guy forging, another guy in a whole nother shop sharpening, another guy making the hilt, another making the scabbard, another doing the engraving, and so on.
Really, when you get right down to it, what is important in the making of a sculpture is the decisions the artists makes- every time you come to a branch in the road, somebody has to pick which way to go.
The "artist" is the one who manages to pick each direction, so the finished piece comes out the way he or she wanted.
A good public artist will use whatever tools are required to get there- tools that might include a structural engineer, a lighting designer, a fabrication shop, a plating shop, a concrete sub, or who knows what else.
If the artist controls what those people do, the end result shows it.
But there are a few public art sculptors (again, no names) who literally do napkin drawings- crude, simple sketches- send them to a fabricator, and never see the piece til the dedication.
In cases like this, every decision is made by the fabricator- and it shows in the work. Patterns, shapes, grinding techniques, all the millions of little decisions that must be made along the way, are made by hourly paid employees who cant wait to get home.
So I would say how the piece is built does not make somebody an artist or not an artist- instead, its how closely the finished piece is to what the artist intended.
There is no way, for instance, Anish Kapoor could have built Cloud Gate (the big silver bean in Chicago) by himself- it took a couple of hundred guys over a year to build it, and cost millions.
But the finished sculpture is EXACTLY what Kapoor intended- all the significant decisions were made by the artist, and it came out exactly like he wanted it to- and, probably, nobody else could, or would, make something the same. The "technicians" who built it sure couldnt have done it on their own.
First off, the great thing
First off, the great thing about art is that there are no definitions that hold for everyone.
You, and you alone, get to decide what you like, and what you dont, and who you think "deserves" the title of artist.
Anybody can make whatever they want, however they want, and call themselves whatever they want.
No registration boards, or licensing agencies, or trade organisations to tell you who "is" and who "isnt" an artist.
As far as large scale sculpture goes, there are always people who enjoy doing every bit of it themselves, and are justifiably proud of having done so.
They, naturally, do fewer, smaller sculptures than somebody who has help.
If you go back in history, you can find example after example, however, of things that are undeniably sculpture, and "art" that were not done by the artist alone.
The Statue of Liberty, Rodin's Gates of Hell, the Sphinx in Gaza, Michelangelo's David- all had "technicians" who helped the artist.
In Italy, for hundreds of years, the tradition has been for skilled stonecarvers to do most of the work on a contract basis. Many of the masterpieces in the books were done by teams of people.
Its really only in the postindustrial age that we have come to this idea that the work is somehow more authentic if the "artist" does it all- back in the day, it was an acknowledged fact that no one person could do it all.
Every movie shows one guy, be it Orlando Bloom or Hatori Hanza, making a sword from start to finish- never happened- swords had one guy forging, another guy in a whole nother shop sharpening, another guy making the hilt, another making the scabbard, another doing the engraving, and so on.
Really, when you get right down to it, what is important in the making of a sculpture is the decisions the artists makes- every time you come to a branch in the road, somebody has to pick which way to go.
The "artist" is the one who manages to pick each direction, so the finished piece comes out the way he or she wanted.
A good public artist will use whatever tools are required to get there- tools that might include a structural engineer, a lighting designer, a fabrication shop, a plating shop, a concrete sub, or who knows what else.
If the artist controls what those people do, the end result shows it.
But there are a few public art sculptors (again, no names) who literally do napkin drawings- crude, simple sketches- send them to a fabricator, and never see the piece til the dedication.
In cases like this, every decision is made by the fabricator- and it shows in the work. Patterns, shapes, grinding techniques, all the millions of little decisions that must be made along the way, are made by hourly paid employees who cant wait to get home.
So I would say how the piece is built does not make somebody an artist or not an artist- instead, its how closely the finished piece is to what the artist intended.
There is no way, for instance, Anish Kapoor could have built Cloud Gate (the big silver bean in Chicago) by himself- it took a couple of hundred guys over a year to build it, and cost millions.
But the finished sculpture is EXACTLY what Kapoor intended- all the significant decisions were made by the artist, and it came out exactly like he wanted it to- and, probably, nobody else could, or would, make something the same. The "technicians" who built it sure couldnt have done it on their own.
http://www.lynnbecker.com/repeat/Gehry/kapoor.htm