Join us for an artist talk with Barry X Ball '77 as he discusses the profound influence of 16th to 20th-century Italian artists on his contemporary sculptures. Bridging the past and the present, Ball has pioneered the use of cutting-edge technology to create his stone works. He employs 3D digital scanning and printing, virtual modeling, and robot milling, in addition to spending thousands of hours hand carving and polishing, to realize each of his hyper-detailed sculptures. Ball’s work weds tradition with innovation, extending the legacy of Italian artists who applied the most advanced technologies of their eras to their work. This program will dovetail with the Benton exhibition 500 Years of Italian Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, which features works from Italian artists of the same time, including drawings by sculptors. Register for the event.
Co-sponsored by the Art History Department at Pomona College
Barry X Ball is a contemporary sculptor based in New York. His work has been widely shown internationally over the last 35 years and is represented in many public and private collections. A major survey exhibition of Ball's figurative stone sculptures, "Barry X Ball: Remaking Sculpture", was staged at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas in 2020. The artist's Medardo Rosso Project debuted at Ca' Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art (Venice) during the 2019 Venice Biennale. A retrospective exhibition of Ball's work was presented at the Villa Panza in Varese, Italy in 2018. Ball's monumental Pietà and Pseudogroup of Giuseppe Panza were shown concurrently at the Castello Sforzesco Museum of Ancient Art in Milano.
A two-person show, "Cy Twombly / Barry X Ball: A History of Painting and Sculpture", was presented from March 31 to June 25, 2022, at Mignoni Gallery in New York in collaboration with McCabe Fine Art. A fall, 2024, major exhibition to be presented at multiple historic sites and the Museo Novecento in Florence, Italy is also currently being organized, as is an exhibition in Beijing in collaboration with the Chinese artist, Zeng Fanzhi.
Ball's sculptures, although paying reverent homage to their historical antecedents, are completely new. Through the use of unconventional materials and innovative methods, the artist has reinvigorated the age-old tradition of figurative sculpture. Ball employs an elaborate array of equipment and procedures to realize his works, ranging from the cutting edge to the traditional, from 3D digital scanning, virtual modeling, rapid prototyping, and computer-controlled milling to exquisitely-detailed hand carving and polishing. With their simultaneous fever-pitch intensity and surreal stillness, Barry X Ball's bravura works make an expansive case for the reconsideration of contemporary sculptural practice.
The new Barry X Ball Studio in Brooklyn is the world's most advanced stone sculpture facility. The 2,000 square meter complex, designed by Andrew Berman Architect, includes a state-of-the-art armamentarium of high-tech equipment, a digital lab, woodshop, large fabrication hall, a variety of dedicated workspaces, a gallery, offices, and many amenities for the artist's team of skilled assistants. The artist's extensive collection of rare, exquisite stone blocks, compiled over 25 years, is stored onsite. The facility also incorporates an expansive glass-walled penthouse with attendant rooftop gardens and terraces. The studio has been featured in several architectural publications.
