Lead and Felt 1969

Robert Morris made this piece, "Lead and Felt", by placing these two very different materials next to each other. I can't help thinking, what was it like in the studio when Morris arranged these materials? He’s bringing these things together, playing with their qualities. The lead is solid, cold, gray and hard. The felt is black, soft, and yielding. Bringing the materials together, the heavy lead and the flexible felt, means creating a new kind of conversation. There is a push-pull relationship here. The materials don’t resolve into a neat package. Instead, they retain their individuality and difference. Maybe that's what the artist wanted, something unresolved, like a question, still open for discussion. That question is still hanging there today, it’s an open invitation for us to think about material and form, and about softness and hardness.