Sculpture remains a distinctive yet challenging medium within contemporary art, often overshadowed by painting due to its physical demands in exhibition and sale. However, its historical role as a public and interactive art form endures. In an effort to identify the 25 most significant sculptures created since 1945, a panel of artists and curators convened in March at the New York Times building for a rigorous selection process.
The panel comprised artists Firelei Báez, Charles Gaines, Adam Pendleton, and Arlene Shechet, alongside Ruba Katrib, chief curator of MoMA PS1 and former curator of the SculptureCenter in Queens, New York’s only museum devoted exclusively to sculpture. The participants approached the task with broad definitions, including works from any country and forms that pushed boundaries between sculpture and other media. They also considered public installations and sculptures emphasizing the interaction of the human body with space.
The discussion revealed a Western and New York-centric bias in the selections, reflecting both the judges’ backgrounds and the prominence of these scenes in contemporary art history. Despite differing perspectives, the panel agreed on the idea that sculpture encompasses objects or installations actively engaging with their environment.
Among the highlighted works is David Smith’s 1951 “Hudson River Landscape,” a steel construction approximately six feet long that translates Abstract Expressionism into three dimensions. Smith’s piece, held by the Whitney Museum of American Art, evokes the countryside of upstate New York through abstracted forms resembling steps, railroad tracks, and natural features, favoring openness over mass.
Kara Walker’s 2014 installation “A Subtlety” drew long lines at the former Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn. The striking work featured a 75-foot-long, 35-foot-tall sugar-coated sphinx and life-sized boy sculptures in materials referencing molasses and sugar. This visceral commentary explored the connections between the sugar trade and slavery, interweaving historical references and African American stereotypes. Most of the work was dismantled after the exhibition.
Melvin Edwards’s “Lynch Fragments,” an ongoing series begun in 1963 and continued until his death in 2026, consists of small steel reliefs welded from industrial tools and chain. Reflecting both the civil rights era and formal abstraction, these works are part of major museum collections, including MoMA and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s “Bichos” series (1959–66) comprises hinged aluminum panels that invite tactile engagement and physical manipulation. Clark, associated with the Neo-Concrete movement, aimed to reconnect viewers to their bodies through art, with works now housed in institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Centre Pompidou.
Claes Oldenburg’s 1961 project “The Store” transformed an East Village storefront into a functioning shop and studio for his Ray-Gun Manufacturing Company. Using papier-mâché and fabric, Oldenburg created playful, oversized consumer goods sculptures that blurred the lines between painting, sculpture, and consumer culture.
Additionally, Marisol’s “Women and Dog” (1963–64), part of the Whitney Museum’s collection, embodies her unique fusion of Pop and folk art aesthetics. The life-size wooden figures incorporate the artist’s portrait and offer a layered, enigmatic exploration of American womanhood marked by stiffness and impassivity.
The panel’s selections underscore the diversity of approaches in modern sculpture, from abstract forms to socially charged installations, reflecting varied engagements with material, body, and environment across the postwar period.