Le Désert Rouge, 1991/2015 (foreground)

Colored carpet and metal fixture

On the one hand, the combination of ready-made objects is indebted to the artistic discourse from the time of its first execution when items from daily life were introduced into an art context to question the nature of an artwork. On the other hand, the work evokes formal issues associated with modernist and post-modernist discussions. Thus the rectangular section of red carpet on the floor evokes the artist's preoccupation with the floor as site of learning.

Untitled (Marilyn), 2015 (middleground)

Printed images on aluminum, fabric

As part of a work created specially for Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro, Gonzalez-Foerster appears as Marilyn Monroe in the famous skinny dip scene from her unfinished last movie, Something’s Got to Give (1962), with this connecting us back to the early modern days of the museum and the mid-sixties when Gonzalez-Foerster was born.

Untitled, 1986/2015 (background)
Column and surface with carpet

Placed in front of the rectangular shape, the column covered in the same material creates the optical effect of partially disappearing or fusing. Perhaps in reference to the traditional distinctions between sculpture and painting (and its reprise in modernism of three-dimensionality vs. flatness), the dynamic contrasts the sculptural presence of the columnar shape with the two-dimensionality of the wall.

Photo © Pat Kilgore