Sky Jag IV 1974

Louise Nevelson created this wall-mounted sculpture, "Sky Jag IV," using wood and then painted it all in matte black. It's like she took a bunch of boxes and filled them with memories, dreams, and forgotten objects. I can almost feel Nevelson piecing this together. Imagine her in her studio, arranging and rearranging these wooden bits, layering them in shadow. The monochrome flattens everything, but also allows the texture and shapes to come forward. It's not painting, but it flirts with it. It's like a painting in three dimensions. Look at that little box in the corner, with all those tiny carved things. What were they originally? And how did they end up here, in this dark, dreamy space? It reminds me of Kurt Schwitters’s collages, but instead of paper, Nevelson uses the language of found wood. It’s like she's building a whole world out of fragments. Artists, we're all just magpies, collecting shiny bits from the world and making them into something new.