Lee Bontecou at the MCA

On display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago until the end of May is a retrospective of sculptor Lee Bontecou. Her sculptures and drawings were popular in the 1960s and 1970s, but since she has rarely exhibited and has existed in a way that works for her but not necessarily for the art world that admires her. Teaching art in Brooklyn, Bontecou can spend years on individual works, immersing herself at times, but without rushing to finish a piece to appease curators, gallery owners or sellers.



Untitled, 1966. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

When I viewed the exhibition on its opening night in early February I was primarily impressed by the intricacy of each piece. Each sculpture works at both the macro and micro scales, in other words from across the room and close-up to the viewer. Nature is a definite influence in her work but also is engineering and, in particular, war machines. The last gives her art a (unintended, perhaps) political resonance that seems just as appropriate now as it must have been in the early 1970s.