David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy

Associated media

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) 6 October  2011–8 January 2012

A fresh look at the work of the great American sculptor David Smith (1906–1965), ‘Cubes and Anarchy’ offers new insights into the artist’s career-long involvement with geometry. Traditionally, the formal austerity of Smith's monumental Cubi and Zig sculptures of the 1960s has been seen as a departure from the Surrealist and Expressionist tendencies of his earlier work. ‘Cubes and Anarchy’ reveals the artist’s iconic late masterpieces to be continuations of his long-standing compositional preoccupation with rectilinear and circular forms. The show includes more than 60 sculptures, drawings, and paintings, as well as rarely seen, revelatory sketchbooks and photographs. Following its presentation at the Whitney, ‘David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy’ travels to the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio.