Untitled 1964

Sven Lukin made this Untitled sculpture out of painted wood, but we don't know when. The shapes are pretty simple, almost cartoonish, but they're layered in a way that feels very architectural. I think about it as a painter, looking at the way the colors meet, and it seems to be really about the surface, and the edges of that surface. The way the blue meets the pink in that big swoosh on the front is like a conversation between two characters. The paint looks thick, almost matte, and I wonder what it feels like to touch. This object embraces ambiguity, I think. Is it a model for a building? A kid’s toy? It's one of those forms that suggests the conversation never ends, a bit like the work of Elizabeth Murray.