Introduction to Kinetic Sculpture: Latin American Contributions

Abstract

We well know that sculpture is a historically limited category; however, on the factual basis of the technique, the three-dimensionality and the symbolic content of the sculpted object, this category finds its origin long before the institutional limits coined by Western art. Such is the academic agreement that sustains it. Nevertheless, at the end of the 19th century, these conventions, related to the logic of the monument, were called into question. Avant-garde art far exceeded its founding principles, to give rise to the expansive phenomenon of the sculpture (Krauss, 1979), within the
framework of artistic expressions that would go beyond historical conventions, leading to, among others, constructivist and abstract sculpture, Object Art, Installation and the Kineticism in its three-dimensional expression, the subject of
study in this article. In this expansive process, the contributions made by Latin American artists were crucial and numerous. The knowledge of its existence and contributions is crucial for the development of sculpture in the regional and Ecuadorian academic context.