Untitled

1961

Untitled, 1961. Lee Bontecou (American, 1931–2022). Welded steel, canvas, and wire; overall: 132.1 x 121.6 x 30.5 cm (52 x 47 7/8 x 12 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art 1967.77 © Lee Bontecou In the early 1960s, Bontecou challenged artistic conventions through her creation of three-dimensional wall constructions that were neither sculpture nor painting, but a hybrid of the two. To construct this work, Bontecou used found objects such as welded steel, wire, and various types of canvas. An abstract form, riddled with dark openings that allude to bodily orifices, lunar craters, and gas masks, the work explores the relationship between the living and the machine. In the early 1960s, Lee Bontecou often used found objects to create her hanging sculptures, including canvas from conveyor belts discarded by a laundry below her East Village apartment and salvaged metal and wire.