Untitled

Lee Bontecou learnt how to weld metal frames, and experimented with soot to get exactly the right blackness. This work is both painting and sculpture, a relief that she conceived in Rome when she was studying early Etruscan art and made upon her return to New York. On Canal Street, near her lower Manhattan studio, she could buy bolts, saw blades and metal wire. The canvas came from mail bags salvaged from the streets, or from surplus stores. While working, she listened to radio transmissions about USA’s involvement in the Vietnam War, reminding her of the Second World War. Her outrage over the wars was incorporated in the work. Bontecou was not interested in whether her artworks were figurative or abstract – she just wanted them to expand, like black holes in space.