Window to the Garden 1971

This is Agustin Cardenas’s sculpture, "Window to the Garden," and it's all about negative space and positive form. The cool thing about sculpture, unlike painting, is that it's a truly subtractive process, you have to take away to create. Here, Cardenas has carved this marble block into something that feels both architectural and organic. The rounded forms juxtapose the sharp edges of the window frame which invites you to peek through. Look at the way the light catches on the curves. The surface is so smooth and touchable! It’s like he’s found a way to freeze motion, a portal solidifying into stone. Cardenas was influenced by Surrealism, and you can feel that spirit here. I'm reminded of the biomorphic forms of artists like Jean Arp or Barbara Hepworth who were interested in the tension between abstraction and figuration, blurring the lines between the natural and the constructed. It's not just a window, it's an invitation to imagine beyond what's visible.