Linear Construction No. 1 1943

Naum Gabo made this construction with plastic and nylon thread, and you can find it at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. I can just imagine Gabo patiently threading the nylon line, creating a space inside of a space. The threads pull our eyes, our thoughts, across the open center. There’s something about the tension of the lines—like a violin string ready to be plucked, or maybe a spider web glistening, ready to receive. When I look at this work, I can’t help but think about Agnes Martin. Her paintings do something similar, but with muted color and a quiet, insistent rhythm. Each artist pulls us into a space of meditative contemplation, finding poetry in the simplest of forms. Gabo’s sculpture sings in a higher key, perhaps, but it's all part of the same tune: form, line, and tension that makes you think and see differently.