The Recycle Group:
from f to futurology

The Recycle Group recently presented the finale to the Royal Academy’s History of Sculpture Course (January to March 2019). Locating their contemporary work within an art-historical context this article connects previous artistic pioneers with these twenty-first-century innovators. Few artists have captured the twenty-first-century consumer zeitgeist with as much curiosity, cynicism, and success as Andrey Blokhin (1987-) and Georgy Kuznetsov (1985-); the duo known as the Recycle Group. From the foundations of their childhood friendship, European cultural family holidays and mutual attendance at the Academy of Industrial Art in Krasnodar, Russia, Recycle Group has offered a sophisticated visual commentary upon modern…

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‘Reforming Academicians’, Sculptors of the Royal Academy of Arts, c.1948-59

PhD Thesis Abstract Post-war sculpture created by members of the Royal Academy of Arts was seemingly marginalised by Keynesian state patronage which privileged a new generation of avant-garde sculptors. This thesis considers whether selected Academicians (Siegfried Charoux, Frank Dobson, Maurice Lambert, Alfred Machin, John Skeaping and Charles Wheeler) variously engaged with pedagogy, community, exhibition practice and sculpture for the state, to access ascendant state patronage. Chapter One, ‘The Post-war Expansion of State Patronage’, investigates the existing and shifting parameters of patronage of the visual arts and specifically analyses how this was manifest through innovative temporary sculpture exhibitions. Chapter Two, ‘The…

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Homo Sapiens, Beaux Arts, London,
12 November 2015 to 23 January 2016

Posed, the figurative sculptures exhibited at Homo Sapiens offer a rare opportunity to contemplate the work of some of the finest British sculptors of the past fifty years. These masters and mistresses of metal are curated to include an illustrious collection of the works of twentieth century artists, together with more recent talents, such as Anna Gillespie whose poignantly emotional sculptures have been placed in Chelsea Flower Show Gardens. The works, ranging in scale from petit maquettes to over life sized, are displayed within the cool white walls and blond wooden floors of Beaux Arts’ airy ambience. Nonchalantly standing, reflectively…

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