Mirror Shadow XXIII
Date1986
MediumPainted wood
Dimensions68 × 72 × 22 inches (172.7 × 182.9 × 55.9 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase.
Object number2023.13
On View
Not on viewCollections
CopyrightThe images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextLouise Nevelson moved to New York City in 1920, where she later studied at the Art Students League (1929–30). During the mid-1950s she produced her first series of black wooden sculptures, for which she became most known: monumental in scale, totemic and dark—challenging the notion of what type of art women in midcentury America could and should be making. She collected scrap wood—including moldings, dowels, spindles, chair parts, architectural ornaments, scroll-sawed fragments, pieces of furniture, and even wheels—which she then stacked, assembled, and bolted into carefully framed compositions.
At a time when “sculpture” was a convention meaning an artwork either carved or molded, Nevelson’s process of sculptural “constructions” was groundbreaking. Nevelson formally unified her work by painting her assemblages monochromatically (usually black, white, or gold) to obscure the identity of the original objects. For Nevelson, black had a mystical sense of wholeness: It “is the total color. It means totality. It means: contains all.” The social archaeology suggested by the objects’ individual histories and functions, then, is not erased but allowed to form new meanings while also inviting viewers to perceive complex tonalities of light and shadow.
Nevelson’s series of Mirror-Shadows from the 1980s were unlike the more ordered and geometric wall reliefs of prior decades—these create dynamic diagonal movements that activate surrounding space. Self-titled the “Architect of Shadows,” she completed this work at 87, just two years before her death.