Plasticity, Maleability, Inestability of the Wax in Contemporary Art. Reflectins on Conservation of a Changing Material

Abstract

Since the beginning, the art of sculpture was aiming to imitate the physical characteristics of the human body to give it a credible appearance. In this sense, the ductility of the wax and its ability to constantly mutate in different physical states, on one hand, and the broad range of signifiers able to express on the other, have made it a material highly valued in artistic creation. If in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the anatomical wax models were the best examples of how aesthetic could have an influence in the scientific process and the new means of artistic expression were materialized, the fascination shown by contemporary art to the theme of mortality and the reflection about the authenticity of the human body, have helped to put the wax in an important position. Against the interest that existed in other historical moments to show how the human body and the description of its anatomy, contemporary art focuses on showing it as a container where all the contradictions of modern society are concentrated.