Synopsis
The intricately constructed black holes, or voids, in Lee Bontecou's most famous pieces don't seem to belong to any type of art previously produced - painting or sculpture. These voids seem to connect to ulterior dimensions. Her work immediately calls to mind the alien worlds of science fiction and fantasy films and novels. Indeed, her methods, materials, and often vaguely unsettling images, set her apart from her contemporaries in the New York art world. Cited as a major influence by a variety of well-known artists, she nevertheless occupies an ambiguous place in the art history canon. She was difficult to categorize, both when she first emerged as a woman artist in the still largely male dominated New York art scene, and retrospectively. She was neither a Minimalist nor an Abstract Expressionist, although her work shares similarities with art from both movements. Despite being regarded as a Feminist artist, her art was not expressly feminist and, more importantly, she did not consider it as such. One of the most striking qualities of her work is that it struck a tense balance between celebrating technology and lamenting its impact on the natural world.
Key Ideas
Most Important Art
Untitled (1959)
Inspired by her memories of war and by modern advancements in science and engineering, Bontecou juxtaposes scrap materials and organic forms to create an interplay between the natural and the industrial. To create this piece, she cut various lengths of canvas and, using salvaged copper wire, she sewed the canvas together so that a subtle, nautilus pattern spirals inward toward an oblong black void. She affixed the constructed composition to a welded steel frame, which because of her small stature, required Bontecou to stand on a ladder.
The nautilus shape references her love of nature and marine life. The black hole, purposely built into the composition, relates to the infinite mystery and wonder of the unknown universe. Following its construction, the hole was sprayed with soot and covered in black felt, which further enhanced the illusion of depth. Bontecou has created a compelling vortex into which the viewer is pulled as though being drawn irrevocably into an actual black hole. The intensity of the composition as a whole is enhanced by the way the fall relief actually invades the viewer's space, coming out powerfully out of the canvas.
Bontecou purposely left the connecting wires visible. Not only does the visibility of the materials create a sense of brutality -- and brutal honesty -- but it lends the relief a kind of harsh, unforgiving character, which the artist associated with warfare. The patched-up canvas, some of which is military surplus, acts as skin and directly relates to the fragility of mankind.
Untitled (1961)
The pieces of canvas in this work are grouped tightly in a patchwork arrangement and held together with a series of metal belts. The canvas functions as the organic or even human counterpart to the mechanical, industrial components used to create the cyborg. The contrast is striking: there is an uncomfortably tense balance between the natural world and the machine-made realm of an imagined, darker future.
Here, the focal point is a large protruding clamped mouth. The mouth, fashioned from reclaimed saw blades that Bontecou salvaged from nearby derelict hardware stores, makes reference not only to the cyborg but to the Mouth of Truth fountain in Rome (according to legend, a person that puts their hand into the mouth of the sculpture and tells a lie will have their hand bitten off.) The sharp, regular teeth of the blade form the teeth of the monstrous cyborg. What might have been a deep, black void in previous works is a menacing mouth or, as suggested in feminist readings, the Freudian vagina dentata - an emasculating image meant to suppress masculine fantasies of sex and dominance.
In this work, Bontecou conspicuously fills the central black void but includes an array of smaller voids, which are evocative of bodily orifices such as eyes and vaginas. With the inclusion of grill imagery, she effectively bars access to some of these spaces, which in earlier works were left open as a means of encouraging exploration. In this instance, Bontecou intended for the grills to reference prisons to which access is restricted. Her use of both barred and open recesses relates not only to her growing disillusionment with space exploration and but also to notions of entrapment and fear. In short, the work functions as a warning that technology can not only open new vistas but it can also expose a darker side of human aspiration - an almost suicidal carelessness that has humans stumbling gleefully into a potentially sinister unknown. The piece seems to say, "There are places we should not travel, both within and beyond the known world."
Untitled (1966)
This fantastical structure is meant to represent a space-age docking station, which had actually become a real phenomenon when the United States launched its intensive, decades-long space exploration programs. Inspired by real-life events as well as Bontecou's verdant imagination, this series is full of hauntingly beautiful images of possible utopias. There is a dark side to these drawings, too, as the artist felt that the possibility of creating a better world was deeply compromised by increasingly more contentious international competition (as exemplified by the Cold War). This work also speaks to her persistent interest in the opposition between the organic and the industrial, the potential for industry and technology to destroy the natural world rather than improve it.
Untitled (1969)
Bontecou created the fish forms by carving the shapes out of Styrofoam -- yet another modern, industrial material. She then placed the molds in a vacuum-forming machine. The heated suction created an exact plastic replica of the carved shapes. The final phase involved bolting and gluing the plastic form into a unified piece. As with her earlier wall reliefs, the artist left the connectors visible in the finished work so that the individual fish appear to be armored.
This series of plastic fish has been interpreted as a commentary on the negative impact of pollution on marine life. This fish is strange, sinister - a goldfish crossed with a shark. The plated armor plastic skin serves as a barrier against the unknown dangers, both natural and manmade, of the sea. While based on forms seen in the natural world, Bontecou's fish is the result of a mutation: a fusion of form and function.
Untitled (1967)
Bontecou incorporates the gas mask and the pipes to create the opposition between the natural and industrial environments. Delicate, intricately rendered petals shaped like fallopian tubes protruding from the pipe-like stem underline the critical importance of water and air for life; the fallopian tubes function as a further commentary on the notion of plant and human life and regeneration.
The flower can also be interpreted as a pictorial response to the constant threat of pollution and nuclear warfare that characterized the Cold War era. The fragility of the flower is brought out by the contrast with the threatening gas mask. According to Bontecou, the flowers were meant to convey the following, ponderous message: "Okay, we have to have plants. If you don't watch out, this is all we'll have to remember what flowers used to look like, this kind of flower that is made out of plastic."
Untitled (1980-1998)
This fantastic, miniature universe was designed to be experienced in the round. The open plan of the sculpture allows for the interplay of light and shadow through which the mobile takes on different forms when viewed from various angles. It is perhaps also demonstrative of the early influence of her friend, Alexander Calder.