Environmental sculpture

Environmental sculpture is sculpture that creates or alters the environment for the viewer, as opposed to presenting itself figurally or monumentally before the viewer. A frequent trait of larger environmental sculptures is that one can actually enter or pass through the sculpture and be partially or completely surrounded by it. Similarly, it may be designed to generate shadows or reflections, or to color the light in the surrounding area.

Sculpture as environment

Julia M. Bush emphasizes the nonfigurative aspect of such works: "Environmental sculpture is never made to work at exactly human scale, but is sufficiently larger or smaller than scale to avoid confusion with the human image in the eyes of the viewer." Ukrainian-born American sculptor Louise Nevelson is a pioneer of environmental sculpture in this sense. Busch (p. 27) also places the sculptures of Jane Frank, as well as some works by Tony Smith and David Smith, in this category. Some environmental sculpture, so encompasses the observer, that it verges on architecture.

George Segal, Duane Hanson, Edward Kienholz, Robert Smithson, Christo, and Michael Heizer are well known practitioners of the genre, although Segal and Hanson's work is figural. Many figurative works of George Segal, for example, do qualify as environmental, in that—instead of being displayed on a pedestal as presentations to be gazed upon—they occupy and perturb the setting in which they are placed. A well known instance of this is the pair of Segal figures that sit on and stand next to one of the public benches in New York City's Sheridan Square; anyone can sit amongst them.