For 40,000 years, humans have been carving, casting and shaping the world around them, creating objects that reflect beliefs, identities, memories and ideas about power and mortality. A new book by art historian and curator Jo Baring explores why sculpture has remained such a powerful form of human expression.
“Totem: The Untold Story of Sculpture,” scheduled for publication by Ecco on November 3, examines the enduring role of sculpture and what these objects can reveal about the human experience.
Rather than presenting a traditional chronological history of sculpture, Baring takes readers on a journey across thousands of years, placing ancient works alongside modern and contemporary pieces. The book uses the idea of the “totem” as a way to explore the larger questions surrounding sculpture and its place in human culture.
“This book is not intended as a history of sculpture. Instead, it is a journey meant to illuminate and inspire,” Baring writes.
The approach is designed to make the subject accessible to readers regardless of their familiarity with art history. Baring focuses on the stories and ideas behind individual works, encouraging readers to reconsider sculptures they may already know while discovering works from different cultures and periods.
Among the works featured are the 40,000-year-old Lion Man and Venus of Hohle Fels, considered among the oldest known figurative sculptures. The book also examines the Haida Star House Totem Pole and works by some of the most influential artists of the modern and contemporary eras.
Readers will encounter Constantin Brâncuși’s Endless Column in Târgu Jiu and Bird in Space, Barbara Hepworth’s Single Form, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty and Louise Bourgeois’ Maman.
The book also explores more recent works, including Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North and Another Place, Wangechi Mutu’s The NewOnes, will free Us and Louise Nevelson’s Sky Totem.
Across five sections, Baring considers how sculpture can embody memory, communicate power, represent loss and help people understand what it means to be human. By connecting works separated by thousands of years, she explores the continuing human impulse to give physical form to ideas and experiences.
Totem is illustrated with original line drawings by Julia Ashe, adding another visual element to Baring’s exploration of sculpture.
The book has already received praise from several prominent voices in the art world. Katy Hessel has called it “groundbreaking,” while Antony Gormley described it as “lively and passionate.” Kate Bryan has called the book “a revelation.”
With its combination of art history, storytelling and visual exploration, Totem offers readers a new way to look at sculpture and consider why humans have been creating it for thousands of years.