The Triennial was born in Fellbach in 1980 as a forum of contemporary small-scale sculpture. Every three years the Small Sculpture Triennial presents contemporary sculptures by international artists on 3000m² of exhibition space. The idea underlying the Triennial − to give renowned curators extensive freedom to formulate a concept and select the participating artists, while working within the parameters of the binding and unifying term ′small sculpture′ − guarantees that every single Triennial is vibrantly innovative and unique. The exhibition is fully committed to the current art discourse.

The success story that is the Triennial was decisively shaped by the respective artistic directors. While geographical and geopolitical premises set the framework for the first seven Triennials, since 2001 − at a juncture when the globalisation of art came to the fore − those responsible have decided to pursue a conceptual orientation, meaning that emphasis was placed on aesthetic, art historical and sociological questions. The international profile of the exhibited artists remained the guiding principle however − so too the focusing on sculpture in smaller format, which was by no means understood dogmatically however. The curators engaged up until now were Heinz Fuchs, Manfred Schneckenburger, Christoph Brockhaus, Lóránd Hegyi, Werner Meyer, Thomas Deecke, Jean-Christoph Ammann, Matthias Winzen and Ulrike Groos. They were followed by Yilmaz Dziewior and Angelika Nollert. The 13th Triennial was curated by Susanne Gaensheimer. The 14th Small Sculpture Triennial will be curated by Dr Brigitte Franzen (*1966).