Untitled #87b

Howardena Pindell

1977 · Cut and pasted and painted punched paper, acrylic, watercolor, thread, mat board, sprayed adhesive, and string on paper · Modern and Contemporary Art

In this work, Pindell adhered hundreds of dots punched out of brightly painted sheets of paper to painted supports, adding scraps of punched paper and painted nails. Not even the underlying grids, created with string, succeed in disciplining the chaotic, riotous sprawl. Pindell was encouraged in her use of aggregation after traveling in 1973 and 1977 to Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal, where the technique was associated with both ritual and empowerment. She took the 1973 trip with Lowery Stokes Sims, then an assistant curator at The Met, who purchased this work for its collection.

Artist

Howardena Pindell

Date

1977

Medium

Cut and pasted and painted punched paper, acrylic, watercolor, thread, mat board, sprayed adhesive, and string on paper

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Purchase, Friends of the Department Gifts and matching funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1978