“Gold has been the staple of the world for ages; it is universal.”
F inding gold to be spiritual and timeless, Louise Nevelson began experimenting with gold paint in the early 1960s, two decades following the advent of her iconic, monochromatic assemblages. She had worked only with black and white paint beforehand, yet was always drawn to gold, seeing within its complexity a return to the core elements of her practice, and of the earth: “After this, there was gold. Gold; you see, a kind of earth. It’s like the sun, like the moon, gold. There is more gold in nature than we imagine. Each day, in fact, sunbeams turn what they touch into gold…Gold is a metal that reflects the big sun. When we wear it, it represents the essence of what we call the reality of the universe. Therefore, I think gold came to me after black and white, in a totally natural way. In fact, for me it was a return to the elements: shadow, light, sun, moon.” Executed in 1961, Golden Gate is an exceptional example from this iconic and limited period in Nevelson’s career. Her captivating open-faced assemblages filled with quotidian, wooden items are transformed when cloaked in gold paint.
Nevelson’s use of gold paint only elevates her intentions for sculpture, highlighting her aim to strip quotidian materials of their typical associations and piecing together a new, enigmatic narrative. The gold paint’s iridescence aids in this recontextualization; as the artist has said, “I think the gold enhanced the forms, enriched them. I loved it” (Louise Nevelson quoted in conversation with Diana MacKown 1976). Her structures are rife with architectural genius; they are both conceptually and structurally magnetic. Nevelson began crafting her assemblages by collecting and combining urban debris, ultimately constructing her sculptures with utmost precision. Though composed of varied parts, the monochromatic surfaces of Nevelson’s assemblages lend order and unity to the constellation of objects. Golden Gate encapsulates Nevelson’s enamorment with structure, composition, and the essence of form when it transcends the boundary between the banal and the aesthetic.
Louise Nevelson's Gold Assemblages in Museum Collections
