Object VIII 1968

Romul Nutiu made this sculpture, Object VIII, from metal. It’s really interesting when you think about how the material of the object is so crucial to its meaning. The sculpture is mostly made up of these black vertical bars, all different thicknesses, set closely together, but not quite touching. They sit on a solid square base. It feels like a sort of cage, or a harp without the strings. I love the texture of the metal, you can see the marks, the joins, the places where it’s been worked. The surface is not smooth or clean, it’s rough and worn. This makes me think about process, about the artist’s hands and the labor that went into making it. You get the sense that this piece was created intuitively, through working and reworking the metal, rather than from a set of pre-planned designs. It’s more like the visual equivalent of jazz than classical. This kind of rough, process-based approach reminds me a bit of David Smith’s sculptures. They both seem to be searching for something through the act of making.