In an article entitled Sculpture in the expanded field, written and published in the 1970s, American art critic and historian Rosalind Krauss stated that "over the past ten years, the most diverse things have come to be called sculpture"*.

Man himself, his body, nature, walking, dancing, photography, performance, air and emptiness, shadow and light, immaterial have all entered the realm of sculpture. Based on the works of Luca Francesconi, Vanessa Safavi and Capucine Vandebrouck exhibited at CRAC Alsace, but also on historical works, Claire Kueny's lecture provides the keys to a recent history of sculpture. It deciphers two expressions frequently written on the explanatory cartels of the works, but which, paradoxically, do not provide any specific information: mixed techniques, variable dimensions.

The conference therefore addresses both the "mixed techniques" of the works, namely the different materials of sculpture, and their "variable dimensions", whether they directly echo the spaces of the sculpture or reflect the extent of the artists' references (historical, geographical, artistic, cultural, popular, popular, personal or universal).

* Rosalind Krauss, Sculpture in the expanded field, in October, No. 8, Summer 1979, p. 30.