Critics, buyers, patrons: does the onlooker make the sculpture?

Friday, May 31, 2024, 9am-5pm
musée Rodin, Léonce Bénédite auditorium
This event will be webcast live

Headed by Paul-Louis Rinuy, Professor of Contemporary Art History, Université Paris 8

The history of sculpture, like that of painting, has long been studied from the perspective of sculptors. In the same way, literary texts have long been read primarily through the lens of their authors. Yet, modern linguistics has, for over a century, emphasized the crucial role of the observer in the very creation of the message. To paraphrase Duchamp: does the onlooker, or the buyer, make the sculpture?

The aim here is to start tracing the outlines of an unconventional history of sculpture from the 19th, 20th, or 21st century, moving away from a study of the artists' styles, materials, poetic ambitions and social trajectories. The analysis focuses instead on the way in which private buyers—that invisible cohort whose names often remain mythical or ghostly—look at, choose and interpret artworks. Friends, critics, buyers, patrons, various intermediaries, and gallery owners are all part of this circle that often visits the artist's studio. They sometimes even know the works before they are produced, and buy them for a specific purpose: ornamentation, glorification, for a funerary monument, or as ceremonial objects; it can also be out of personal preference, or because they want to build up a collection. The aim of this symposium is to provide a precise analysis of the practices, circumstances of intervention and measurable effects of the actions of these viewer-buyers.

Research committee

• Amélie Simier, Director, Musée Rodin
• Paul-Louis Rinuy, Professor of Contemporary Art History, Université Paris 8
• Véronique Mattiussi, Head of Research, Musée Rodin
• Franck Joubin, Researcher and Conference Coordinator, Musée Rodin

Crédit visuel : Frantisek T. Simon, À l’exposition Rodin, 1902, Paris, musée Rodin, P.09527