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August 02, 2004
Somebody recovered from the past. There is a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.
An early and powerful work:
Lee Bontecou, Untitled, Welded steel, canvas, wire, and velvet, 1966
Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times gives us some background:
"A star on the clamorous New York art scene of the 1960's, the only woman in Leo Castelli's famed stable, Ms. Bontecou made hulking, ferocious wall reliefs with yawning black cavities. She used Army surplus materials, twisted bits of bristly copper wire and weathered canvas strips of discarded conveyor belts from a laundry below her decrepit studio on the Lower East Side. At the Modern, these early reliefs pack a special wallop, thrusting out from the walls, a battery of loaded weapons threatening to go off."
These are tough and monumenetal. The latter sculptures are more delicate and lacy mobiles suggesting jelly fish:
Lee Bontecou, Untitled,Welded steel, porcelain, wire mesh, canvas, and wire,
1998 (begun in 1980s)
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There was a really interesting New Yorker Magazine article about Lee Bontecou about a year ago.
The main thing I remember was that she left the New York art scene many years ago and went to live in the country in Pennsylvania.
They also mentioned that she was doing shows again.
I will have to dig it up again and re-read it.