Alexey Morosov: The Last Sculpture

Alexey Morosov will make a sculpture in a single day in Venice, then relinquish the right to alter or replicate it.

On September 22, 2026, Alexey Morosov will perform THE LAST SCULPTURE at the Pavilion of the Kyrgyz Republic at the 61st Venice Biennale. From 11am to 6pm, with a one-hour break, he will work on a single clay sculpture from the TULPAR BATYR cycle. At 6pm he stops modelling. Under the rules of the work, the sculpture may never be reworked or replicated. It will remain on view until November 22, left to dry on its own, unmonitored. In November, once the clay is fully dry, its state will be documented and stabilised. Filmmaker Hugo Perez will record the performance.

September 22
The artist enters the performance space at 11am. The seven-hour performance includes a break from 2 to 3pm. Modelling ends at 6pm. From then on, neither Morosov nor anyone else may correct or remake it. Nor may it be moulded, 3D-scanned, or reproduced in three dimensions by any other means. These rules are part of the work. 

After 6pm
After 6pm, the sculpture and its platform are moved from the centre of the church to the position the work will occupy for the rest of the exhibition. The work itself is not touched. It remains on view until 22 November. As the clay dries, before the November documentation and conservation, it may shrink, crack and deform. Nothing is corrected. The drying is not recorded as part of the project: no cameras, livestreams, sensors or machine vision watch the work. After the artist leaves, only the object, space and time remain.

November
Conservation will take place in November, before the Biennale closes, once the clay is fully dry. Whatever state the sculpture has reached is recorded and stabilised with a conservation compound. This treatment is limited to preserving cracks, deformations, shrinkage and other traces of the drying; it does not reconstruct or restore the form of September 22. Final measurements and technical documentation then complete the work. The stabilised state is the final form of THE LAST SCULPTURE.

Context
THE LAST SCULPTURE continues Morosov’s exploration of the manuport—a natural object selected and carried away without being shaped—which began in BELEK. The Makapansgat pebble, found in South Africa in deposits around three million years old, is thought to have been carried into a cave by an early hominin. Its face-like markings may have prompted that choice. For Morosov, this act brings a natural form into culture. Today generative technologies again put the artist in the position of recognising, selecting and approving form rather than making it by hand. Between these two moments lies the historical interval in which sculpture was made by human hands. THE LAST SCULPTURE treats that interval as finite. This is not a literal prophecy of the ‘death of sculpture’, but an artistic position enacted in a single irreversible act. In a single day, the hand makes the form. Then the artist relinquishes the right to take part in its transformation. 

Artist's statement
“For me, the first sculpture was not made: a form was recognised in a stone, chosen and carried away. Today form is increasingly recognised, chosen and approved rather than made by hand. I wanted to cross the interval between those two points once more, in a single day and in one direction only. During the performance I work with clay. At six in the evening I step away from it and no longer have the right to return to it. From then on the material does the work, and I do not want to influence it. Whatever state it has reached by November will be stabilised and preserved as it is. This is not a prophecy about the end of sculpture. It is a position I decided to carry through to the end in a single act”.

Admission to the pavilion is free. Registration for the performance: via e-mail.