Art Brussels 2014

Made of a mixture of stone powder and water, plaster has been considered to be an alchemical material since prehistory. It is soft and easy to knead when wet, and when it has set it can be polished. Because of these tactile qualities, it has been a privileged material used for centuries by mankind to shape everyday and artistic forms – for example, the Ancient Egyptian masterpiece, "the kneeling scribe", which dates from 2,600 B.C. It has been used in pottery to preserve food and has been made into floor tiles, pillars, sarcophagi, funeral masks and architectural mouldings. Artists have used it to create plaster casts, as a reference when carving stone or marble, or as an autonomous work. From Hans Arp to Urs Fischer, Franz West and Allan McCollum, artists throughout the history of art have used this modest and elementary material to challenge the idea of sculpture as a formal discipline. The exhibition Plaster Mind pays tribute to this material.