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Martin Puryear
Untitled, 1990

Artwork Info

Artwork title
Untitled
Artist name
Martin Puryear
Date created
1990
Classification
installation
Medium
wire mesh, tar, and Douglas fir
Dimensions
70 in. × 84 in. × 46 in. (177.8 cm × 213.36 cm × 116.84 cm)
Credit
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Copyright
© Martin Puryear
Permanent URL
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/FC.798
Artwork status
On view on floor 4 as part of Freeform: Experiencing Abstraction

Puryear has likened Untitled to a Korean horsehair hat. Light shines intermittently through the tar-encrusted mesh, creating visual shifts that render the interior of the sculpture visible, but inaccessible. The artist has explained: “I’m interested in mediating between a feeling of massiveness and fragility to reach a point of extreme vulnerability. Wire mesh allows for all of this. It can appear massive and opaque, but [it] is actually a thin veil.”

Gallery text, 2016

Other Works by Martin Puryear

See other works by Martin Puryear

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