Untitled 1988

Editor: Okay, next up we have Helen Pashgian’s "Untitled" from 1988, a resin sculpture. It’s moody, almost ominous with this dark green color and ambiguous form. What are your thoughts? How do you interpret this work in relation to its time? Curator: Pashgian emerged in the Light and Space movement, largely centered in Southern California. How does its context and physical location shaped it? In Los Angeles in the 60's, a burgeoning aerospace industry advanced the possibilities of plastics, resins, and industrial materials. This intersection of art and industry deeply informed the movement's visual vocabulary. What appears 'ominous' to you may speak more to anxieties concerning technological advancement than it does to natural forms or darkness. Editor: That makes a lot of sense. So the context of technology actually plays a bigger role in its aesthetic and overall appearance? Curator: Absolutely. Also consider what was happening in the art world itself. The dominance of painting, particularly Abstract Expressionism on the East Coast, created a strong reaction. Light and Space artists pushed back against painting's perceived limitations. It demanded a more physical encounter, aiming for a sensory and often subtly disorienting experience that moved away from purely retinal engagement. How does this sculpture physically invite the viewer's experience beyond solely the "retinal"? Editor: Well, its three-dimensionality suggests an interaction. You might want to walk around it, see how the light changes. It almost anticipates your presence as part of its viewing. I guess I didn't think of the industrial aspect too much initially because I mostly thought about how Light and Space wanted to go beyond paintings. Curator: Exactly. Artists like Pashgian weren't just innovating artistically; they were intervening in larger conversations about perception, space, and the role of the artwork itself within an evolving cultural landscape shaped by technology, science, and shifting socio-political realities. Editor: It is such an important intersection of factors. It definitely gave me a new perspective about this sculpture. Thanks for helping me! Curator: My pleasure. Hopefully we can reconsider our preconditioned expectations about what counts as "art" and look again at Pashgian's experiment.