Lee Bontecou

By 1959, the young sculptor Lee Bontecou had developed a unique language, inspired in equal measure by organic forms and mechanical structures. Hovering between abstraction and figuration, her canvas and wire reliefs and freestanding sculptures of the 1960s powerfully expressed the awe and terror of the inexplicable, whether natural or manmade. A scientist of the unseeable, Bontecou offers up carefully observed specifics as evidence of much larger ends. "My most persistently recurring thought is to work in a scope as far-reaching as possible," she wrote early in her career, "to express a feeling of freedom in all its necessary ramifications—its awe, beauty, magnitude, horror and baseness." Although she continued to make sculptures and drawings throughout the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, Bontecou chose not to show her work publicly, preferring to work in relative isolation in her western Pennsylvania studio. Over the past several years, she has begun to exhibit again. Her most recent works are delicate wire and ceramic sculptures that resemble macrocosmic systems, such as constellations, or microcosmic ones, such as insects. Though distinct from her earlier objects, they continue to merge the empirical with the transcendental, the scientific with the spiritual. This presentation was co-organized with Elizabeth A. T. Smith and includes a selection of works from the artist's entire career.

Selected Bibliography:

Hadler, Mona. "Lee Bontecou's 'Warnings.'" Art Journal 53 (Winter 1994): 56–61.

Judd, Donald. "Lee Bontecou." Arts Magazine 39 (April 1965): 16–21.

Smith, Elizabeth A. T., ed. Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective. Exhibition catalogue. Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art; Los Angeles: UCLA Hammer Museum, in association with Harry N. Abrams, 2003. Essays by Donna De Salvo, Mona Hadler, Smith, and Robert Storr.

Solomon, Alan. New York: The New Art Scene. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1967.

Sussman, Elizabeth. "Lee Bontecou: UCLA Hammer Museum." Artforum 42, no. 5 (January 2004): 48–49.

Links:

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ArtScene