Twining Court II 2002

Anne Truitt made "Twining Court II," a painted wood sculpture, sometime in the last century. Her work is often about color, but here she’s using black, and it kind of changes everything. I find myself thinking about how the finish on the wood affects the way we experience it. Look closely. It’s not just that it’s black but that the surface is relatively matte. This creates a feeling of quietness, an absorptive quality. That feeling is enhanced by the sculpture’s verticality. There’s something about the way it rises from the floor that makes you want to stare at it for a long while. Truitt's work, like that of Agnes Martin, is all about pushing minimalism to a place of profound emotional depth. It embraces a world of ambiguity, where nothing is quite fixed or definitive.