sculpture work at the exhibition Photo: Courtesy for the Academdy

The Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts has launched a sculpture-oriented online art exhibition to explore how digital technologies have influenced the development of contemporary sculpture. 

The exhibition, which focuses on the three main concepts of the "image," "object" and "sight," features more than 70 sculptures coming from sub-creative branches such as embodiment sculpture, public sculpture and experimental sculpture to embody the potential, influence and impact of digital engagements in fine art sculpture. 

The theme "image" defines the traditional subjects in sculpture art. "Object" refers to the ideas of "object" and its "physicality" in presence within a sculpture, a subject which has been increasingly explored in the field of experimental sculpture to emphasize the autonomy of material in order to break through the "human figure" worship in traditional sculpture art. And "sight" refers to the accessible nature of public sculpture and its engagement in social environments. 

sculpture work at the exhibition Photo: Courtesy for the Academdy

The Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, located in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, also aims to explore how the art of sculpture has developed in China under the heavy influence of the booming digital technologies of contemporary culture. 

"Digitalization is a double-edged sword. It moves the 'sculpture' forward into an even more advanced mode, freeing material-focused sculptors from being limited in just what can work in the physical… but it also challenges the core of sculpting, the aesthetics of the physical embodiment," Liu Yu, a sculptor, told the Global Times on Sunday. 

Besides the online exhibition, the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts also launched a graduate exhibition in mid-June that is scheduled to close on Thursday.