One-Day Symposium
Casting Modernity. Editions, Reproductions and the Afterlife of Sculpture
Monday 23 November 2026, 10.00 – 19.00
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art
This symposium aims to bring together scholars, curators, conservators and artists to examine the complex status of the sculptural cast and the role of editioning in the history of twentieth-century art. Taking the Estorick Collection’s new long-term loan as its point of departure – a cast of Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913 / 1971–72) – the event will explore how acts of reproduction, replication and posthumous casting have shaped the reception, circulation and ontology of modern sculpture.
Although celebrated as a canonical masterpiece of Futurism, Boccioni’s sculpture is best known today in the form of casts produced long after the artist’s death. The work therefore occupies a provocative position within the history of modern art: at once singular and multiple, original and reproduced, materially absent yet culturally omnipresent.
The symposium asks what it means for one of the defining sculptural icons of the twentieth century to exist primarily through editions cast decades after its conception.
The history of posthumous cast production includes other famous works of art by various artists such as Constantin Brancusi, Henry Moore, Giorgio de Chirico, Alexander Archipenko and Auguste Rodin. Across a series of lectures and panel discussions, participants will also consider broader questions surrounding sculptural authenticity, authorship and material translation. Topics may include the history of bronze casting and posthumous production; the economics and ethics of editioning; the legal and institutional frameworks governing casts and replicas; the role of photography and exhibitions in constructing sculptural identity; and the relationship between reproducibility and avant-garde aesthetics.
By situating Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space within wider debates about originality and replication, the symposium seeks to reconsider the status of the sculptural object in modernity and beyond.
In an age increasingly defined by digital reproduction and questions of material authenticity, the issues raised by the sculptural cast remain urgently relevant.
Ticket includes drinks reception and an opportunity to view both the exhibition Wanda and Marion Wulz: Avant-garde Photography in 20th-Century Italy and the Estorick’s permanent collection.
£30 Standard / £25 Estorick Collection Members and Students
Tickets to be released soon.