Seventh Decade Garden IX-X, Louise Nevelson

Episode 31 Jun-2005, Joanna Sternberg, Prints and Drawings Intern I’m David Cateforis with another art minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. For many, the idea of a garden evokes visions of colorful flowers or rows of herbs and vegetables. These products of the earth are fragile and impermanent. But what about a garden made from welded metal? Louise Nevelson’s “Seventh Decade Garden,” located on the northeast side of the Spencer, is a sculpture that challenges our usual notions of the organic world and the transience of nature. One of the major American sculptors of the twentieth century, Nevelson made sculptures out of wood, metal, and other materials, by assembling dozens or even hundreds of disparate elements that she unified with a single color - usually black, white or gold. Completed in 1970, Nevelson’s “Seventh Decade Garden” is composed of flat sheets of black-painted aluminum cut in arching and angular shapes that rise from a solid geometric base and diverge into two dark towering configurations, like abstract plant forms. The sculpture, which Nevelson created in her seventies, is a fine example of the many monochromatic works in metal she completed during the final decades of her career. With thanks to Joanna Sternberg for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.

Where’s the garden? This work is titled Seventh Decade Garden IX - X. One of the most important artists of the 20th century, Nevelson completed this work in her seventh decade when she started working with cut aluminum. Her earlier works were constructions of found objects in wood. Gardens usually contain soft, colorful plants. But, in this case the shapes are metal and black.

Located in front of the Spencer Museum of Art, surrounded by a serene atmosphere of gray pavement and rock, Seventh Decade Garden by Louise Nevelson is a breathtaking aluminum sculpture positioned on two beige colored plinths. The piece itself is constructed with flat, black pieces of aluminum arranged to resemble two flowers in a garden. At first sight, it seems as if there are two abstract configurations of a flower, but through close observation, you realize that that the two structures are precisely the same. They are built up with the same organic shapes of aluminum located in the exact same position. The only difference is that one is elevated by a larger pedestal and oriented at a 45 degree angle. This characteristic creates an area of negative space in the center which guides the viewer around the entirety of the piece. With irregular, yet congruent aluminum shapes, Seventh Decade Garden is a profound structure. Louise Nevelson, the artist who created this piece, was a Russian-American sculptor widely known for her monumental, monochromatic wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. The majority of her pieces can be recognized due to their trademark style of being painted monochromatically. As a student, she was taught to practice art with a limited palette, using colors like black, to ‘discipline’ herself. She would go on to describe the color black as a total color. Furthermore, Nevelson played a crucial role in the feminist art movement. Credited with examining femininity in art, Nevelson challenged what traditionally was thought to be a woman’s place in the field of art. Deliberately, she chose to create works that were dark, masculine, and colossal. She had a strong belief that art and sculptures should not be judged by the gender of the creator, but by the perception of each individual. All this insight into Nevelson’s life and her principles allows us to better understand her sculptures, especially the Seventh Decade Garden. She developed it when she was in her seventies, hence the name. The use of irregular shapes follows Nevelson’s art style of breaking barriers and becoming a favorite among art enthusiasts and collectors. I believe the two configurations symbolize the various notions and designs proposed by generations of conceptual artists, and the negative space in the center represents the Feminist Art Movement, a component of American Art History that shaped future generations. The sculpture itself resembles two flowers which are subjects that one may recall as being soft, colorful, and weak, yet the sculpture relays an entirely contrasting idea. With compelling, abstract parts and pieces, the art portrays the talent, courage, and strength of women. The piece opposes traditional, orthodox views and emphasizes acceptance and tolerability. The sculpture can even apply to the 21st century, as gender based, and even race and religious discrimination is widely present. The piece is yet another example of how thought-provoking messages can be conveyed through sculptures. This has been Sivani Badrivenkata with another Bulldog Podcast.

A garden. Flowers in neat rows, perfectly trimmed shrubbery, an array of vegetation bursting with color, but also fading over time. Now think of another version. A tall new garden constructed from welded metal, lasting with little to no change no matter the lapse of time surrounding it. Louise Nevelson’s Seventh Decade Garden is exactly this. It contrasts and challenges the stereotypical view of the natural world. The Seventh Decade Garden, located on the Northeast side of the Spencer Museum of Art, consists of two structures of thin, curving sheets of aluminum painted black simulating non-organic plantlike structures strategically placed next to each other on the top of a sandstone base to grant it height, forcing viewers to look up at the stunning structure. Louise Nevelson, who created the Seventh Decade Garden when she was 70 (hence the name), was very influential in her art and she played a fundamental role in the feminist art movement. She traveled outside the small box most female artists were confined to during her time and created large, towering artworks. She created her sculptures this way to emphasize the point that she was going to be an artist. Not a female artist, not a male artist, but an artist. The Seventh Decade Garden is an excellent example of Nevelson’s sculptures which typically consists of large curvaceous shapes tied together with a solid color, usually white, gold, or black. She described the darkest and her most used of these, black, as “total color.” once saying “‎...I fell in love with black, it contained all color. It wasn’t a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors... You can be quiet and it contains the whole thing." Of course the Seventh Decade Garden is painted black, displaying the acceptance of colors within it. I believe Nevelson did not create some colorful friendly piece since she was conveying all of the colors in a typical garden within the monochromatic black and that she was further emphasizing her point of feminism within her art, intentionally forcing any spectators to look up at the large construction, unlike what female artists often made during her time. Though, one could still look deeper into this piece. Personally, I was drawn to it by its complexity and how intricate it appeared. Upon further examination, I discovered that the two formations that tied together to create the beautiful garden, were exactly the same. Two identical pieces to one abstract puzzle. There was however also a notable empty space between the two to give the art a feel that it really is two different pieces. I interpreted that this was to show that the parts parallel us. We come together as similar individuals and share what sets us apart from others to make something beautiful. Yet its beauty alone does not mean these things last. This piece could be telling us to make sure that whatever we do, we continue doing it and not to flake on our passions. Remember, Nevelson did not simply create a flimsy garden that will fall apart in a year or so, but a strong metal monument to individuality that will last for decades. The Seventh Decade Garden is a stunning display of Nevelson’s talent in creating abstract, but extremely meaningful artwork that accurately portrays many issues and ideas that still hold strong today. This has been Ian Haas with another Bulldog Podcast.

The Seventh Decade Garden was engendered in 1971, depicts a garden, though not one typically imagined. In her later years, Louise Nevelson preferred working with aluminum, the material used with The Seventh Decade Garden. The use of aluminum made the piece appear dark in color and jagged in texture, both qualities not typical of a real garden. Some make assumptions about the piece’s meaning based on occurrences in Nevelson’s life, such as her involvement in the feminist art movement, or her migration from Russia to the United States. Louise Nevelson was born on September 23, 1899 as Leah Berliawsky in Persilav, Poltava Governorate in the Russian Empire. She migrated to the United States with her family in 1905, where she went to live in Rockland, Maine. As a young woman, she gained interest in art, and it became most of what she did in her time at school and at home. Eventually she married Bernard Nevelson, with whom she moved to New York City. During her time in New York, she began to make art her main focus. After her divorce, Louise became fully engaged in arts, specifically the feminist art movement. In New York, Nevelson created a name for herself as one of the greatest sculptors of the century. This piece was designed in Nevelson’s seventh decade, when she began using aluminum. I personally very much enjoyed this piece due to its shadowy and rough nature, and the industrial feel it brings. I feel like it represents what our world has become, something organic and flowing while at the same time being uniform, metallic, and industrial. Nevelson’s reason for creating this piece is unknown, though I have a theory of my own for what this piece means. I believe that the contrast within this piece represents the contrast of her life in Russia, and her life in the states. Coming from an agrarian Russian society, Nevelson was introduced to an urban, industrial society at an early age. The two societies in which she lived existed in stark contrast to each other. The new world that she came to wasn’t the same “garden” that she had come from, as one was based on agriculture and one based on industry. To me, society is an organism, made of many different parts, and both of these societies existed with different kinds of organs within them. The Seventh Decade Garden displays a syncretism of the two societies, the “garden” representing a Russian agrarian society, and the shadowy colors along with the metallic build represents an industrial New England society. Another reason for the use of aluminum was to present how much the world has changed in her seven decades. The sloping sheets of aluminum stand upon sandstone plinths, making one of the structures appear taller than the other. In truth, the structures are identical. Aluminum was an uncommon, valuable material in Nevelson’s youth. By her seventh decade, aluminum was a common material that was easy to get ahold of. Nevelson’s use of aluminum in this piece proves all of the change she had witnessed in her time, first a change in scenery, next a change in society. This has been Keaton Hoy with another Bulldog Podcast.