Creating a three-dimensional sculpture out of wood, metal, stone, ice, or really any other material requires an intuitive understanding of form. When you make a mistake on a two-dimensional canvas, you can potentially repair the damage. If you mis-chisel a block of granite, however, your work gets irreparably changed. Thus, to become a master sculptor (particularly in the more difficult media), you need to grapple with physics as well as with style. More than perhaps any other kind of art, sculpture creates permanent, extroverted displays. From the Roman statues of the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus which populated the Coliseum to the modernist statues which decorate the office parks of America, the form has evolved significantly. Statues are intended as living, breathing components of their environments. Some modern sculptors intentionally break this extroverted mold, however, to turn sculpture into an intimate form. Quieter works, such as wood carvings, papier-mâché displays, and frozen media artwork, persist in local museums, as well as in big showcase exhibits at places like the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Some experimental artists have taken to crafting what's called "interactive sculpture." Participants get to add to or subtract from the components of these works. Modern artists have employed computer graphics technology to design and implement sophisticated, highly improbable feats of sculpture engineering. These contortions, which depict seemingly physically impossible situations, are meant to provoke discussion. A display of the controversial sculpting form of plastination (a technique which creates plastic models of human cadavers) created a sensation in Los Angeles in January 2005.
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