Slave Collar c. 1937

Al Curry, who lived from 1855 to 1995, made this, Slave Collar with watercolor, and it's all about process. The controlled, almost muted colors are key. It's like he’s building this thing up slowly, layer by layer. You can really see the materiality of the watercolor, that light washes on the paper giving this transparency to the metal. The physicality is subtle, but there. The paint is thin, which allows the paper to breathe. I mean look at the marks around the bells. They are so delicate and controlled, but they also have this vulnerability. There's something so tender about the way he renders these objects. It is like Jasper Johns, but he is not being slick. It is more earnest. It feels less like a comment on the thing, but a meditation on it. It leaves you with this feeling, not a resolution, but an openness.