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Exploring Proto-installations through Louise Nevelson’s Sky Cathedral

Exploring Proto-installations through Louise Nevelson’s Sky Cathedral

Where does art end and architecture begin? Can notions of collage, as seen in aesthetic assemblages of John McHale and Richard Hamilton, be recreated in a three-dimensional capacity? These are some questions that American sculptor Louise Nevelson attempts to answer through her seminal work, Sky Cathedral.

Louise Nevelson was a pioneering figure in modernist assemblage art. Born in Russia, she immigrated to America with her family at the age of 5, which is also when her tryst with sculpting began in the form of soap carving. She spent decades experimenting with art styles and materials, until the mid 1950s, when assemblage art began to grow in popularity and Nevelson’s sculptures in size, eclipsing the human-sized sculptures she worked on earlier in her career. Nevelson soon developed a signature modernist style, owing to which she found major critical and commercial success.

 

This signature style is reflected in her 1958 work Sky Cathedral. The work consists of boxes containing random objects stacked against a flat wall, with a wash of matte black paint tying them together. The artwork evokes an odd juxtaposition of feelings: the disparate and unrelated objects lead to a sense of confusion and disagreement, while the paint obscures these objects just enough to bring an overarching sense of harmony to the work.

 

 

Nevelson heavily leans towards monochromatic shades in her work, and matte black often makes an appearance. Trained to use a limited palette in order to ‘discipline’ herself, Nevelson describes black as a “total colour […] It wasn’t a negation of color. It was an acceptance.” The colour is also traditionally associated with mystery and elegance. However, in this sculpture, there are religious connotations to the colour which must be noted, particularly due to the fact that a lot of abstract expressionist works drew inspiration from religion. Painter Barnett Newman said in an essay, ‘Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man, or ‘’life’’, we are making it out of ourselves, out of our own feelings’. Considering this, the title of the work becomes more meaningful.

 

 

What Nevelson achieves is an organised complexity — order and chaos enmeshed in a symbolic marriage of form and symbology. The unrestricted cacophony of furniture parts melded together within neatly structured lines and boxes proves to be a curious collaboration of two seeming binaries; in turn, we discover possibilities for form and composition, and in turn beauty, that are in simple terms: unique, novel, previously unheard of; heralding a new era for art and human thought.

 

Text by Kaira Puri
Image Courtesy: Smithsonian American Art Museum and Museum of Modern Art

 

Find out more about the Artist and Gallery:

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/louise-nevelson-3523

https://www.moma.org/artists/4278

http://www.artnet.com/artists/richard-hamilton/

https://www.moma.org/artists/4285

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