V-X 1967

Kenneth Snelson's V-X is made of metal, and looks like some kind of futuristic building block or playground equipment. The cool thing about sculpture is you can really see how it's put together, which means you can get a sense of the artmaking process. The steel tubes balance and pull against each other. The thin metal cords make the whole thing feel like a drawing in space. The way those elements come together makes you think about how things can be simultaneously solid and fragile, or heavy and weightless. Look at how one of the tubes plunges into the ground at a steep angle. Does that give the work a sense of thrust, or does it feel precarious to you? Snelson's work reminds me a little of Sol LeWitt's modular sculptures, where simple geometric forms add up to complex arrangements. But where LeWitt can feel very cerebral, Snelson has a sense of play to it. It's like he's saying, "Hey, let's see what happens if we try this." And that's something I can really get behind.