Untitled

1959

Welded steel, canvas, wire, soot

58 1/8 x 58 1/2 x 17 3/8 inches

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold H. Maremont

While living in New York she could easily obtain found objects to utilize in her works. Untitled used found materials to create art that fused the industrial with the organic and created artworks that emblematized the contradictory space age. This work incorporates soiled canvas taken from conveyor belts discarded by a laundry below her East Village apartment. She stretched pieces of the fabric across sections of steel armature and fastened them to the metal with wire, creating a surface resembling something between a stained-glass window and a patchwork quilt. To gaze into the black hole in the center, the viewer fell into a dream like trance imagining the depths of space. Her fascination with astronomy influenced the fabric choice of black velvet, particularly the infinite vastness of black holes and voids. She stated, “I like space that never stops. Black is like that.” Untitled was created during the height of the Cold War and the “Space Race” that emerged during this period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States that invoked fear of war.