Diana Al-Hadid (showing at Marianne Boesky)
  • Diana Al-Hadid (showing at Marianne Boesky)
Big, expensive sculpture is back at Art Basel Miami Beach this year, but with a material difference, reports The Art Newspaper:

Eschewing the slick productions favoured of Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami, or the sprawling installations of artists such as Christoph Buchel and Thomas Hirschhorn, today’s artists are taking a more idiosyncratic approach. Young artists are working in a range of styles, and returning to classical media. Among the offerings are a series of bronze sculptures by 29-year-old Diana Al-Hadid, from $18,000 to $22,000 at Marianne Boesky; London’s The Approach is showing marble works by Patrick Hill and Alice Channer; and Johann König has Alicja Kwade’s large bronze and gold-leaf Kohle, 2010, for E40,000. Pointing to the ceramic Adesso, 2009, by Bertozzi and Casoni, $55,000, David Leiber of Sperone Westwater says artists are embracing the challenge of mastering traditionally conservative materials: “Very few artists are working in ceramic, and the artists like that.”

In other sculpture news, ice can be turned into Optimus Prime, y'all.