The American painter Ad Reinhardt once defined sculpture as something you bump into when you back up to look at a painting. The chances of that happening seem to have multiplied ten-fold in recent years as sculpture displays have proliferated throughout the U.K. and particularly in London.

On any given day, sculpture in a bewildering diversity of forms can be experienced in auction houses, in public and private museums, in art dealers' showrooms, open-air shopping centers, concert halls, municipal and private sculpture parks and even on green field sites in the middle of nowhere.

Right now you can take your pick from displays of contemporary sculpture at the British Museum, in the grounds of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, at the Gagosian Gallery in King's Cross, and at the new specialist sculpture dealership, Pangolin Gallery at King's Place. Meanwhile, this year's Frieze contemporary art fair has expanded its sculpture display in Regents Park, testifying to the enduring appeal of large-scale outdoor work.

To this ever-lengthening list one might add the Royal Society of British Sculpture's (RBS) sponsorship of a new public sculpture prize titled FIRST@108; Turner Prize winner Mark Wallinger's $3.46 million proposal to erect a 164-foot-tall realistic sculpture of a horse at Ebbsfleet International station in Kent (on the Eurostar route to the Continent), and, of course, the ongoing controversial activity around the vacant Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Yes, it's official: Britain is obsessed with sculpture and never more so than when it's big.

Contemporary sculpture is no longer the sole preserve of modern art galleries and is now viewed as a sure-fire crowd-puller by the most traditional museums. The British Museum's current 'Statuephilia' exhibition (until Jan. 25), co-curated by James Fox and art critic and broadcaster Waldemar Januszczak, is a case in point. Complementing Januszczak’s recent four-part Channel Four documentary, The Sculpture Diaries, the exhibition includes work by Damien Hirst, Ron Mueck, Antony Gormley and Marc Quinn, creatively juxtaposed alongside ancient objects from the museum's permanent collection.

“Statuephilia brings together a group of modern sculptors, all of whom have prowled through the corridors and display cabinets of the British Museum in their formative years looking at sculpture and feeling its unmatched international potency,” said Mr Januszczak. “The British Museum helped to make these artists what they are. Now they are seeking to return the favor.”
Meanwhile, as the British Museum courts contemporary artists, the art trade has been mounting ambitious shows of the kind formerly considered the preserve of museums. A visit to the current installation by American sculptor Richard Serra at Gagosian Gallery in King’s Cross is an opportunity to see sculpture’s traditional core concepts – weight, balance, volume, mass – explored to dramatic effect in a series of towering, precariously tilting elliptical corridors fashioned from weatherproof steel.

The son of a shipyard worker, Serra makes big, dark, heavy sculptures the size of supertankers that very few museums could even accommodate. When experienced at first hand, they are breathtaking and unforgettable, imparting an acute sense of one's own bodily frailty. The Gagosian show is a rare opportunity to see Serra's work at its most ambitious and monumental.

The subtle transmission of Serra's influence can also be detected in Beyond Limits, Sotheby's third annual selling exhibition of outdoor sculpture on the Chatsworth estate in Derbyshire, the seat of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (until Nov. 2). Among the artists showing this year is Serra's fellow countryman Jedd Novatt, whose Chaos Vascos II represents a considered investigation into essential sculptural values – balance, gravity, weight – and a certain kind of visual energy illuminated by abstract form.

Commenting on the Chatsworth exhibition, Novatt told Style Century Magazine, “I make my work in industrial environments, so it’s always interesting to see it installed in such an insightful way within a traditional English landscape. Alex Platon of Sotheby’s was very thoughtful about his placement of the varied contemporary sculpture in the exceptional gardens of Chatsworth House.”

The Chatsworth exhibition also includes work by Marc Quinn, whose Siren – a life-size 50 kilogram (110 pound) solid-gold statue of supermodel Kate Moss – has been wowing visitors to the British Museum’s Statuephilia display. Siren represents Moss with her legs wrapped behind her head in a crotch-flashing, tendon-ripping, yogic posture. The work appeals to the same culture of conspicuous consumption as Damien Hirst's headline-hogging diamond-encrusted skull, For the Love of God, reportedly sold earlier this year for $86.5 million to a consortium of buyers that included Hirst himself. That work, perhaps more than any other, provided the most conspicuous demonstration of sculpture’s brash market dominance.

Meanwhile, more subtle, but no-less-telling indications of sculpture’s newly prominent market profile include the expanded sculpture park at this year’s Frieze Fair, and the opening of the Pangolin Gallery in the new Kings Place cultural center in King’s Cross.

The expansion of the Frieze sculpture park came about thanks to innovative sponsorship from specialist fine art insurance brokers Blackwall Green (of the Heath Lambert Group), who have created a series of Frieze bursaries to emerging sculptors.

“One is often asked to sponsor things,” said Adam Prideaux of Blackwall Green, “but the Frieze bursary, which we hope to be able to repeat in future years, offers us a chance to show support in a more direct way for artists who ordinarily might not be able to afford to exhibit.” Administered through the Frieze Foundation, the bursary covers fabrication and shipping costs and has enabled artists from around the world to participate in this year’s fair.

The new Pangolin Gallery at Kings Place in King’s Cross is another vivid illustration of how in recent years sculpture has developed a new market profile to become more actively collected than ever before. The London Pangolin Gallery is associated with the Pangolin bronze foundry in Stroud, Gloucestershire. In recent years the Pangolin foundry has earned itself a global reputation as one of the most respected fabricators of fine art bronzes, casting work for the Lynn Chadwick estate as well as for Damien Hirst and a host of other artists of international standing.

The connection to its sister foundry in Stroud promises to make the London Pangolin Gallery a unique presence within the sculpture market. “Like any gallery, Pangolin London has been a long time in the planning,” says Pangolin Gallery director Polly Bielecke. “The current economic climate may not make it the ideal time for opening a brand new gallery; however, we feel confident that the unique relationship Pangolin London has with its artists and their foundry and the high level of craftsmanship of each and every sculpture we show in the gallery will see us through these difficult times. I hope that Pangolin London will become a gallery which people will regularly visit in the knowledge that they will see high-quality sculpture that not only celebrates sculptural traditions but also pushes the boundaries and looks at sculpture in a fresh and exciting way.”

Pangolin’s inaugural exhibition of new work by sculptor Peter Randall-Page –titled Rock Music Rock Art – proved an ideal launch-pad for the new King’s Place cultural center which will host not only contemporary art, but also cutting-edge music and theater.

To make the current body of work, Randall-Page traveled in 2007 to Lolui Island in a remote corner of Lake Victoria, Uganda, accompanied by contemporary composer Nigel Osborne and members of the London Sinfonietta.

There they joined with African artists and musicians to explore the natural phenomenon of ancient rock gongs – vast Neolithic granite boulders which, when struck with a rock, deliver a remarkably resonant bell-like ringing tone. The project chimed perfectly with Randall-Page’s interest in organic form and his love of music.

The Pangolin exhibition displayed Randall-Page’s large bronzes and striking linocut prints of Lolui Island created during the Ugandan odyssey. The London Sinfonietta, meanwhile, has been performing Nigel Osborne’s new composition based on recordings of two octaves drawn from the Lolui Island rock gongs Rarely have music and sculpture achieved such a harmonious synthesis.

If the American artist Ad Reinhardt – who felt painting was the only medium that could be abstract and pure enough to achieve timelessness – were around today, one feels sure he’d revise his view of sculpture. Painting is rapidly becoming something you bump into when you back up to marvel at the sculpture.