Abstract: Urban sculpture has developed rapidly in China in recent years, which not only flourishes public culture, but also enhances the popularity of the city and is loved by the people. But at the same time, there are also some chaos in the creation process of urban sculpture, which is worthy of in-depth reflection by designers, investors, decision-makers and sculptors of urban sculpture, continue to play the role of contemporary urban sculpture, and improve the cultural taste and spiritual outlook of the city. Urban sculpture not only conforms to the general characteristics of sculpture, but also has its own special attributes. As an important part of the urban public environment, it has a high artistic appreciation value and has become an important cultural landscape and landmark building of the city.
1、 Rapid development of urban sculpture
In recent years, the rapid process of urbanization in China has accelerated the development of urban sculpture. Through the taste and association of sculpture works, people can read out the cultural and ideological content that a city mainly wants to express, which can have an immediate effect on urban publicity. It not only beautifies the streets and lanes of the city, but also enriches the artistic life of the audience and improves the cultural taste of the city. Some excellent urban sculptures in foreign countries complement each other with the development of the city, which are consistent with the local human environment and natural geographical features. They have high artistic appreciation value and bring people infinite aesthetic imagination, such as the Statue of Liberty in New York, the “Daughter of the Sea” in Copenhagen, the “Urine Child” in Brussels, the “Merlion” in Singapore, the “Knot Pistol” in the United Nations Headquarters and other large-scale sculptures, As an important human landscape, these sculptures have become an important part of the urban public environment. Some aesthetically pleasing works of art that meet the public aesthetic value have developed into landmarks of a city.
Urban sculpture is often built in the public space of the city. This typical geographical location and environmental elements endow sculpture works with a unique creation concept – the artistic aesthetic concept of sharing the refined and popular tastes and an open and diversified aesthetic value system, embellishing and enriching the cultural landscape of the city. At present, in the construction of urban sculpture in China, the representational and imagery forms of thematic sculpture occupy a leading position. Sculpture works express the profound cultural accumulation and historical heritage of each city through the representational and intuitive artistic concept. In recent years, with the development of the city building movement, new cities have sprung up, and urban sculptures have emerged one by one. Sculpture designers will be able to think rationally and dig deeply into urban culture in the future. Sculpture works have already stood in the center of the city. Therefore, the image representation of urban sculpture is gradually increasing.
2、 The Creation Disorder of Urban Sculpture
The rapid development of urban sculpture has also led to some strange phenomena. Due to the uneven quality of sculpture works, the selection of China’s top ten ugliest buildings often appears on the Internet. Most of the names on the list are urban sculpture works.
The theme of urban sculpture works is often inclusive and open, some of which are meaningful and interesting; Some of them are ambiguous and full of postmodernism; Some of them are meaningless, depending on the viewer to give them meaning. However, at present, many designers of urban sculpture simply superimpose eastern and western cultures, cut various design elements at will, and mix and match various design schemes at will. This kind of excessive free play in the state of self design completely ignores the multicultural background of different classes of people, and imposes the designer’s design concept on the aesthetic consciousness of the public, leading to the emergence of a large number of “ugly sculptures”, It is not only unable to effectively present the humanistic history and cultural heritage of a city, but also causes a great waste of urban effective space and a bad orientation of social aesthetic culture, making some urban sculptures constantly deviate from the public aesthetic. This lack of publicity makes some urban sculpture works become “visual pollutants”, damaged or rebuilt. Therefore, the construction of urban sculpture, whether concrete or image, Or abstract forms, should follow the aesthetic road of artistic creation.
3、 The Future Development Trend of Urban Public Sculpture
The future urban sculpture should not only return to the origin of sculpture art, but also transcend the existing forms to form a new art community. Urban sculpture artists should not only achieve “fine carving” in their sculpture works, but also present “fine painting” in their design ideas, return to the most authentic form of expression, artistic essence and aesthetic elements of urban sculpture, return to the origin of sculpture as a symbol, return to the cultural and historical background of each work, make new sculpture works perfectly fit with the ancient urban culture, and transcend the constraints of the inherent content and form of sculpture, It reflects the characteristics of the times and humanistic attributes of urban sculpture, “carving” shows the aesthetic value and flavor of the times of the works, “shaping” gives a good cultural guidance and value guidance, so that urban sculpture, a unique art form, can accurately show the styles of different times and cities, and become the best business card to publicize a city.
- Urban sculpture should be more historical and humanistic
The design theme of urban sculpture should fully reflect the historical and cultural allusions, traditional values and culture of each city, pursue freedom, justice and equality, and advocate hard work, kindness and courage. At the same time, a city sculpture should accurately reflect the cultural characteristics and humanistic landscape of a region. Sculpture designers and decision-makers should understand the unique historical development background, economic and social operation, population, properties and other conditions of each city, and draw up a sculpture design plan by deeply looking for historical and cultural clues and important nodes of the times, so as to finally achieve the goal of both beautifying the public environment and highlighting the city’s characteristic culture, Let the audience understand the rich historical and cultural heritage of each city through sculpture works, and experience the city’s flavor of the times from the historical context. - Urban sculpture should pay more attention to public aesthetics
Because of its public nature, urban sculpture should not become a testing ground for sculpture designers to design in a free style, but should return to the aesthetic, moral and values of the general public. The content and form of sculpture works should take into account the aesthetic ability and cultural feelings of each class, form a healthy and upward cultural orientation, and play an important role in aesthetic education. - Urban sculpture should be more culturally inclusive
Sculpture, as an important artistic language, should better tell the social public culture recognized by different classes and groups. The designers and decision-makers of urban sculpture should pay attention to the organic integration of personality and sociality, the reference and integration of Chinese and foreign cultures, and the independent display of cultures in different regions and different social groups, emphasizing the inclusiveness, openness and inspiration of urban sculpture culture, Integrate the diversified and unified overall aesthetic feeling into the natural space environment and regional characteristic culture.
With the complexity and diversity of the expression content and presentation form of sculpture, supplemented by different materials, processes and processes, each sculpture has formed its own distinctive artistic features. To break through the existing level of urban sculpture, it is undoubtedly a better choice to build a large-scale art complex focusing on sculpture. Designers of urban planning can select a certain area, comprehensively use stainless steel sculpture, garden, painting, music and lighting and other art forms to convey the environmental connotation of human space, integrate multiple presentation methods, guide the audience into specific cultural environment and sensory channels, improve the aesthetic taste of the audience, better understand the rich connotation of urban sculpture, and improve the cultural taste and spiritual outlook of the city.