ART-PRESENTATION: The Face in the Moon
Louise Nevelson was a leading sculptor of the 20th Century, pioneered site-specific and installation art. She is recognized for her sculptures comprised of discarded furniture and other wood elements found in the area surrounding her studio. Composing these elements into nested, box-like structures, she would then paint them in monochromatic black, white, or gold, transforming disparate elements into a unified structure.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Whitney Museum Archive
Louise Nevelson is fundamental to the history of Feminist art, as it challenged the dominant stereotype of the male sculptor. She emerged in the art world amidst the dominance of the Abstract Expressionist Movement. Nevelson emphasized her reliance of the processes of drawing and collage to create her monochromatic wooden sculptures. Drawn entirely from the Whitney’s Collection, the exhibition “The Face in the Moon: Drawings and Prints by Louise Nevelson” focus on her works on paper, many of which, like her sculptures, involved building compositions of unconventional or recycled materials. The prints of view include works from her two most significant bodies of print works. Those made in the mid-1950s at Atelier 17 in New York and those made in the mid-1960s at Tamarind Lithography workshop in Los Angeles. Louise Nevelson’s 1963 Tamarind fellowship occurred at a time of personal crisis. Her decision to jump galleries, after several financially successful exhibitions in the late 1950s and early 1960s, backfired when her first showing at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York failed to produce sales sufficient to cover the gallery advance she had received to prepare the show. Nevelson was forced to sell her house while paying legal fees to extricate herself from the new relationship with Janis. This combination of events left her financially and emotionally defeated. Arriving in Los Angeles in late April, Nevelson was soon rejuvenated by the sunny climate and the atmosphere in the workshop. As she has reflected: “I wouldn’t ordinarily have gone. I didn’t care so much about the idea of prints at that time, but I desperately needed to get out of town and all my expenses were paid”. During May and June, she completed twenty-six editions of lithographs, using direct and often unorthodox methods. Among her glossary of techniques was the pressing of inked objects like erasers, lace, and other textured materials onto the stones and plates. Nevelson also made textures on transfer paper and cut and transferred them to stone in a collage-like manner. No one had produced as many prints in six weeks of residency as had Nevelson. The published prints were well received, and the experience gave Nevelson renewed confidence. Her paper collages, like her sculptures assembled from wooden objects, reconfigure the disparate materials from which they are composed, including scraps of paper and foil, into unified, unexpected compositions. Interested in the physical constraints of objects, Nevelson sought to transform the materials that she used and the subjects that she depicted. She believed that art could reorient one’s relationship to the built and natural world, challenging us to see our environments differently through her work.
Info: Curator: Clémence White, Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, New York, Duration 20/718- , Days & Hours: Mon-Thu & Sun 10:30-18:00, Fri-Sat 10:30-22:00, https://whitney.org
