LLEI D'ART 10

Although its most significant period took place over the 1960s and 1970s, it was in 1978 when it became best-known internationally thanks to (amongst other things) the reception of works like those of the famous American artist Robert Morris. The works were characterised by the use of ephemeral materials like mirrors, textile by-products and felts in a search for the dematerialisation of the object to be represented (a work destined to be shown for a brief period of time before its destruction). Other artists in this field are the Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor and the German-born American, Eva Hesse. Soft art often uses materials with a great range of flexibility, frequently using hand-made techniques; something particularly common to the Arts & Crafts artistic movement, which came about in England in the middle of the 19th century. This movement arose out the work of pre-Raphaelite artists such as William Morris, who coined the term, and his return to the techniques and customs of medieval arts and crafts as a way to rebel against the Industrial Revolution’s systems of mass production during the Victorian era. He reclaimed the importance of the human being over the machine and restored the privileges of art and creativity. Robert Morris . Sin título/ Untitled , 1973. Fieltro marrón/ Brown felt. © Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Nueva York. Colección Panza. © SIAE 2012. Foto David Heald. Al valerse habitualmente de materiales de gran flexibilidad, es frecuente su realización a mano, algo muy familiar dentro de la corriente artística Arts & Crafts , una escuela surgida en Inglaterra a mediados del siglo XIX, de la mano de artistas del movimiento prerrafaelita como William Morris, quien acuñó el término, retomando usos y costumbres acordes a las artes y oficios medievales como forma de rebeldía a los sistemas masivos de producción propios de la revolución industrial en pleno auge de la época victoriana, reivindicando la primacía del ser humano sobre la máquina y recuperando para el arte y la creatividad todos sus privilegios. 29