Sculpture as Tension
Notes on the Birth of Form
What happens before a form exists?
Before the gesture, before the cut, before anything becomes visible, something is already at work.
A resistance.
A tension seeking form.
In Sculpture as Tension, Roberto Tagliazucchi enters the most hidden moment of the creative process: the point at which matter begins to respond, space becomes active, and a form ceases to be one possibility among many and becomes necessary.
This is not a technical manual and not an academic theory. It is a sculptor's reflection on what happens when body, matter and space enter into tension.
Through short texts and a selection of works in marble, bronze and drawing, the book follows the passage from the first invisible impulse to the moment when form can no longer be otherwise.
“I do not sculpt only what remains.
I also sculpt what, even though it has been removed, continues to exist.”
Volume is the spatial dimension of form.
The void is not necessarily absence.
Space is not an empty container.