Green Streamer 1970

Phillip King made ‘Green Streamer’ of painted steel. Steel, typically associated with heavy industry, is here shaped into something lyrical. Notice how King coaxes industrial materials into forms more commonly found in nature, like leaves or waves. The flat sheets of steel have been precisely cut and bent, demonstrating the artist's mastery over the material, and also the steelworker's craft in forming these shapes. King's choice of materials is significant; steel production has always been deeply intertwined with social issues of labor, class, and consumption. By using it in his sculpture, King is engaging with these wider social issues, as well as contributing to the mid-century effort to expand the language of sculpture. It is a testament to the power of materials and making that this bulky industrial substance, through manipulation, is given a sense of lightness, akin to that of a paper streamer caught in the wind.