Femme au miroir 1934

Julio Gonzalez made "Femme au miroir" out of iron, and right away, you can see how he’s thinking through the material, the way it can be both solid and airy at the same time. Look closely, and you'll see how the metal is worked, it's kind of rough, not smoothed over. There's a real physicality to it. It feels like you can trace the steps of how it was made just by looking. It's almost like he’s drawing in space with metal, making lines that suggest form. I love how the mirror is just suggested, not literal, like a cage, or maybe the reflection is something you can't quite grasp. Gonzalez was doing something revolutionary, pushing sculpture into new territories. You can see a connection between this and some of Picasso’s metal sculptures – it's like they're having a conversation across their work about how to break down form and rebuild it in new ways. It's a reminder that art is never done in a vacuum, it's always responding to what came before and pushing towards what might be.