Made in 1959, the year Bontecou created her first wall-mounted steel-and-canvas sculptures, this work incorporates soiled canvas taken from conveyor belts discarded by a laundry below the artist's East Village apartment. She stretched pieces of the fabric across sections of steel armature and fastened them to the metal with wire, creating a surface resembling something between a stained glass window and a patchwork quilt. While her early reliefs conjure a wide range of associations, this particular one resembles, among other things, an aerial view of an otherworldly landscape. Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, had recently orbited the earth, launching the Space Age. As Bontecou later recalled of this time, "I had a joy and excitement about outer space—nothing was known about the black holes—just huge, intangible, dangerous entities, and I felt great excitement when little Sputnik flew."

This object is part of "Scan The World". Scan the World is a non-profit initiative introduced by MyMiniFactory, through which we are creating a digital archive of fully 3D printable sculptures, artworks and landmarks from across the globe for the public to access for free. Scan the World is an open source, community effort, if you have interesting items around you and would like to contribute, email stw@myminifactory.com to find out how you can help.

Scanned : Photogrammetry (Processed using Agisoft PhotoScan)