DESCRIPTION: Students explore issues of shape, form and style by examining and comparing geometric and biomorphic sculptures. The activity includes a discussion of Joep van Lieshout's model for the sculpture The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and its two parts: the geometric cabin and the biomorphic moving Art Lab. Seven examples of geometric and biomorphic sculpture from the Walker Art Center's collection are used, in addition to the model, to illustrate the two different forms. Students are then given the opportunity to create their own compositions online.

OBJECTIVES: To introduce differences in style and form, and explore how the different shapes can express content, movement, feelings, and atmosphere in sculpture.

PROCEDURE: This activity will focus on the differences between geometric versus biomorphic. Do the differences in form reflect a difference in function? Students should explore the relationship between the two. The activity includes the construction of compositions using geometric and biomorphic shapes.

Geometric shapes include squares, rectangles, triangles --many shapes with straight edges-- as well as circles. Biomorphic shapes can be defined as shapes taken from nature that usually have curvy lines.

GO TO THE INTERACTIVE ACTIVITY

MINNESOTA GRADUATION STANDARDS:
(1) Read, View, Listen
(3) Literature and the Arts
(4) Math Applications
(5) Inquiry

Age level: Appropriate for children at grades 4-5.
Artworks used:
Biomorphic sculptures:

1. Isamu Noguchi, Shodo Shima Stone, 1978
2. Henry Moore, Reclining Mother and Child, 1960-1961
3. Barry Flanagan, Hare on Bell on Portland Stone Piers, 1983
4. Jacques Lipchitz, Prometheus Strangling the Vulture II, 1944-1953
5. Tony Cragg, Ordovician Pore, 1989
6. Barbara Hepworth, Figure: Churinga, 1952
7. Jean Arp, Aquatique (Aquatic), 1953
8. Joep van Lieshout, Model for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, 1997 (detail)

Geometric sculptures:

1. Jackie Ferrara, Belvedere, 1988
2. Mark di Suvero, Molecule, 1977-1983
3. Sol Lewitt, Three x Four x Three, 1984
4. Claes Oldenburg, Geometric Mouse Scale A, 1969/1971
5. Richard Serra, Five Plates, Two Poles, 1971
6. Tony Smith, Amaryllis, 1965-1968
7. Siah Armajani, Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge, 1988
8. Joep van Lieshout, Model for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, 1997 (detail)

© 1998 WALKER ART CENTER