Sky Jag IV 1974

Louise Nevelson made this sculpture, Sky Jag IV, from wood. It's a wall-mounted piece, painted a uniform matte black. Nevelson was all about collecting discarded wooden objects—bits of furniture, architectural fragments, and everyday items—and assembling them into these intricate, box-like constructions. The monochrome paint job kinda unifies all these disparate parts. The texture is key here. You can see the rough-hewn edges, the joins where things are pieced together, the way the paint fills in some gaps and leaves others exposed. There's a real sense of layering, of things being added and subtracted, built up and broken down. It's almost archaeological, like unearthing some ancient civilization. This piece is kind of reminiscent of Kurt Schwitters' "Merzbau," that ongoing architectural project he worked on for years. Both artists were interested in taking everyday junk and transforming it into something monumental. It’s the art of accumulation. It’s about finding beauty and meaning in the discarded and overlooked.