Art 308: Sculpture Studio

Monica Milstead

Project 1- Process
ANALYSIS

Process-oriented art is so submerged in the making of a piece that the making is the only main concern. Process is a part of all art. Obviously, it is the method in which every painting, sculpture, photograph et cetera is created. But it isn’t always the forefront. When process becomes the main focus, the specific piece of art stops looking outside of itself for direct meaning. There are choices that an artist will make, and to reveal how a piece of work is created and make this the main focus steps away from a piece of work being an allusion or referencing anything outside itself. This is not to say that process art can’t be metaphorical, but isn’t an image that serves as a metaphor.

Process art is not concerned with the product an act creates but the action itself. To “foreground” process is to make evident that action in the final piece. Michelangelo’s incomplete pieces reflect the process of how his work was created, although this was unintentional. David is meant to be marveled at as some sort of miraculous creation. In the incomplete pieces, repetitive chisel marks can be seen—and there is a variation of identifiable and unidentifiable shapes— an ambiguity of form that is not usually present in works that try to eliminate the marks of their making.

The act of making becomes the focus of process art. Whether it is a repetitive action that the artist takes or a physical exploration of the physical materials of an object, what we the viewers are meant to focus on is the means, not the end.