Jos Laughs

Theo Mackaay works with recognizable shapes: women, men and animals, with a pointer at the primal form. Archetypal motifs like warriors, women, horses, archers and loving couples are created with his own signature. An example of this work is the well-known Gouden Kalf, the big prize of the Nederlands Film Festival. It was designed in 1980 by Mackaay and commissioned by Jos Stelling, film director and initiator of the festival.

There have been big developments in Mackaay's work after the calf, but basic forms are still to be found in his work. The renewal in his work has been an internal fight between the two sides of his brain —the wild artist animal and the changed, peaceful, contemplative sculptor. The last one won! Not only did Mackaay change as a human being, his work changed with him. Big, tough Expressionist bronze and stone statues featuring the woman and animal as his favorite subjects changed into touching, intimate bronze sculptures.

In the early work of Mackaay, the masters of the past were more visible, like Marino Marini and Ossip Zadkine. Now it seems, the artist is letting go of the past and has found his own formal language, after all the highs and lows in his life.

Mackaay's wandering through France, Italy and China brought him to Malaga in Spain, his current residence. Maybe it owes to the Mediterranean Sea or the Spanish sun, but the fact remains that Mackaay is today closer to himself — a rough shell that dares to show its delicacy.

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Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

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Figurative sculptures mix reality and imagination, with the most common muse being the human body. Animals are also inspirations for these sculptures, along with forms found in nature.

While figurative sculpture dates back over 35,000 years, the term came into popularity in the 20th century to distinguish it from abstract art. It was aligned with the Expressionist movement in that many of its artists portrayed reality but in a nonnaturalistic and emotional way. In the 1940s, Alberto Giacometti — a Swiss-born artist who was interested in African art, Cubism and Surrealism — created now-iconic representational sculptures of the human figure, and after World War II, figurative sculpture as a movement continued to flourish in Europe.

Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon were some of the leading figurative artists during this period. Artists like Jeff Koons and Maurizio Cattelan propelled the evolution of figurative sculpture into the 21st century.

Figurative sculptures can be whimsical, uncanny and beautiful. Their materials range from stone and wood to metal and delicate ceramics. Even in smaller sizes, the sculptures make bold statements. A bronze sculpture by Salvador Dalí enhances a room; a statuesque bull by Jacques Owczarek depicts strength with its broad chest while its thin legs speak of fragility. Figurative sculptures allow viewers to see what is possible when life is reimagined.

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