Plasticity and Sculpture. Forms - Materials - Imprints

This research deals with two concepts, plasticity and sculpture, whose association may seem odd and obvious at once. Today, the concept of plasticity is becoming increasingly popular and is being adopted in a great number of scholarly fields; on the other hand, sculpture is receiving less and less theoretical attention. And yet, plasticity seems to rely on sculpture under many respects. Aiming at exploring the network of conceptual relations that connect plasticity, sculpture, and neighbor concepts such as those of form, material, and imprint, the dissertation unfolds in an argumentative trajectory that goes from the most abstract version of plasticity (a reconstruction of the historical vocabulary of plasticity and its rather idealistic meanings) to the most material one (the plasticity of plastic materials such as synthetic polymers). The intermediate steps are crucial in that they display the progressive embodiment of plasticity: first, in the organic sense of the plastic human subject; then, in the material sense of the plastic art of molding and casting. Catherine Malabou’s theory of plasticity is tested time and again, and often sets the ground for the conceptual alternatives that structure the argument. The ultimate goal of this research is to show that plasticity, brought back to the plastic arts of casting and molding intended in their sheer materiality, has an unexplored potential that can turn it into the conceptual core of a nonhuman material aesthetics.