Notte africana 1973

Fausto Melotti made this sculpture, maybe sometime in the mid twentieth century, out of brass and mixed media. Looking at it, I see him thinking through how color can almost float, how thin metal lines can box in thin air. It's so delicate, like a stage set for a play that never happens. There’s a kind of geometry here, but it’s all off, like a dream logic. He’s got these flat, gold, lollipop shapes sticking up on wires that remind me of Calder mobiles. Then you see that painted crescent shape, a sort of red-tinged moon, and a loose coil hanging nearby like a sketch in space. It’s the kind of sculpture you could never really be finished with, it’s always in process somehow, always a sketch. Melotti’s a bit of an outlier, but you can feel some connections to Klee in his whimsical abstraction. He reminds us that art isn't about answers, it's about keeping the conversation going.