Jo Baring for Totem: The Untold Story of Sculpture

Jo Baring is at Topping & Company Booksellers on Friday 16 October, talking about her book Totem: The Untold Story of Sculpture. It's a story-led journey through the history of sculpture, and it doesn't just stick to the big names you'd expect. It starts with the prehistoric Lion Man found in a German cave and an ancient Mayan pyramid, moves through Renaissance icons like Michelangelo's Pieta, and carries on into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with Alberto Giacometti, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Constantin Brancusi, Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama and Antony Gormley.

Baring describes the book as a celebration of how sculpture roots us in first-hand physical experience, both of the world and of our innermost feelings. It's a lyrical, beautifully illustrated look at the medium, and Sir Antony Gormley called it 'a lively and passionate book'.

Baring herself brings a lot to the table. She's an art historian and curator, and she hosts the podcast Sculpting Lives. In 2023 she was elected as the Frankland Visitor to Brasenose College, Oxford, and she's the Director of the Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art, where she's drawn on her experience as a former Director of Christie's UK.

The talk is on Friday 16 October, 7pm to 8pm, with doors opening at 6.30pm. It's held in The Bookshop at Topping & Company Booksellers, 1 Museum Street, York YO1 7DT, just opposite York Minster.