Sculpture has gone through a plethora of transformations in the modern era, from Rodin’s emotionally charged, erotic figures in the 1880s, to Judd’s geometric, stoic forms of the 1960s, to the current anything-goes approach of contemporary sculptors. Naturally, the best (or at least best-remembered) artists use their work to respond to the pressing political and emotional concerns of their time. In these first years of the new millenium, sculptors have focused on issues including the ever-growing modern alienation, contemporary notions of gender, rising tensions related to global conflicts, global forced displacement, and even the medium of sculpture itself.
For Part 2 of our list of must-know recent sculptures, we’ve excerpted 10 notable works from Phaidon’s The Twenty-First Century Art Book that show how artists today are responding to our time.