When Forms Come Alive: Sixty Years of Restless Sculpture

Inspired by sources ranging from a dancer’s gesture to the breaking of a wave, from a flow of molten metal to the interlacing of a spider’s web, the artworks in When Forms Come Alive conjured fluid and shifting realms of experience.

The forms that oozed, undulated, erupted and sprawled across the exhibition space invited open-mindedness from visitors and, in return, offered endless opportunities for surprise and intrigue.

In an era when our encounters are increasingly digitised and disembodied, these artworks called to mind the pleasures of gesture and movement, the poetics of gravity and the experience of sensation itself.

The exhibition delved into sixty years of experimentation, telling the story of sculpture’s evolution from rigid minimalism towards the vitality of the artform today.

It featured twenty-one artists of international renown, who have been pivotal in driving this change: Ruth Asawa, Nairy Baghramian, Phyllida Barlow, Lynda Benglis, Michel Blazy, Paloma Bosquê, Olaf Brzeski, Choi Jeong Hwa, Tara Donovan, DRIFT, Eva Fàbregas, Holly Hendry, EJ Hill, Marguerite Humeau, Jean-Luc Moulène, Senga Nengudi, Ernesto Neto, Martin Puryear, Matthew Ronay, Teresa Solar Abboud and Franz West.

When Forms Come Alive: Sixty Years of Restless Sculpture was on display in the Hayward Gallery at Southbank Centre, from 7 February until 6 May 2024. Find out more at southbankcentre.co.uk.