The material characteristics of the stainless steel sculpture

1. Material selection: from traditional materials to modern materials
With the continuous development of the modern art movement, the figure sculpture into a more freewheeling era. Sculpture material applications, the development of large-scale machine industry open up a new area, a large number of metal processing means being used. Contemporary Sculpture in the more than four-fifths of the work is the metal material. The reason for this phenomenon is not accidental, and the progress of human civilization is largely attributed to metal materials processing means, which makes the metal has a great advantage - capable of cutting, welding, casting, forging, also can be sanded, polished, and on rust, the beauty of the performance of copper, iron, steel and other materials and material to be fully exploited.
After World War II, as the metal of the important concepts of modern industrial civilization carrier readymade becoming the material of choice for stainless steel sculpture, special metal material has not only a sculptor medium of artistic creation, and the artist's concept carrier reflect the properties of the human spirit, to give stainless steel sculptures to the the greater shaping charm, embodied the mental outlook of the era.
2. Status of the material: material language from passive to active
It should be said, when some kind of material selected by the artists, and put into some kind of their own or with other materials common artistic context, they become a kind of artistic language. Traditional art, because of the level of awareness of the external morphology of the material is still in the conceptual understanding of the material, the material of speaking capacity and autonomy. A language factors can a decisive role in the artists and their artistic creation, but it is actually subject to the artist passive artists of thought and consciousness spokesperson. We can see, often used in traditional sculpture, bronze metal material is a typical "endorsement" material, most stone sculpture, it is only the means and tools of ideology materialized.
With the continuous advancement of science and technology, the human ability to understand the world has been greatly improved, awareness and perceptions about the world, substances also changing, rapidly changing human art. On the artists' awareness and choice of materials, this change was the most direct, "let the material speak for itself" almost become conscious of the artists. This change is particularly evident in the history of the development of the modern stainless steel sculpture,. Works of minimalism sculptor David Smith, the author is willing to simplify the body into a pure geometry strongly faded even when in the creation of their own personality, make works more impersonal, objective, in order to achieve the greatest degree show stainless steel The purpose of the charm of the material itself, so that the stainless steel speak pure language, the right to speak to the material.