Louise Nevelson

A pioneering female sculptor, Louise Nevelson is among the most significant American sculptors of the twentieth century. Building on the legacies of Cubism, Constructivism, and Abstract Expressionism, the artist’s famed wooden constructions translate found objects into personal yet abstract portals.

Based on Untitled (1976–78), an important work in ICA Miami’s permanent collection, this presentation features a selection of Nevelson’s assemblages from the 1970s. The sculptures exhibited here, both wall-mounted and freestanding, are made of scraps of wood and furniture—chair legs, a baseball bat, balusters, and a headboard—found on the streets of New York that create intimate portraits of Nevelson’s day-to-day urban context. Nestled into box-like structures scaled to the human body, these works highlight the artist’s use of sculpture as a reflection of her immediate social and geographical environment. “You see, when a car goes over a piece of wood and it comes out with all sort of things—dents. Those are my drawings,” she said. “What’s the use in drawing them when it’s much more direct doing it the way I do? It’s immediate, it’s true, and it’s there. . . . New York, for instance, is my mirror. . . . When you encompass the whole city it becomes a great twentieth-century work of art.”

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