Verbal Description: Young Shadows, 1959–60

Narrator: The work Young Shadows by Louise Nevelson is an abstract wooden sculpture approximately 9-foot tall  by 10-foot wide with a shallow depth of 8 inches. It is composed of thirteen interlocking black boxes set against the wall. The rectangular boxes are each different sizes and orientations since they are made up of milk boxes, lettuce crates, and other wooden containers scavenged by the artist. Each box has been stacked and arranged together to create the illusion of a single, but uneven black square. Like a pile of parcels, the composition is jagged and irregular. Because the entire piece is covered in matte black paint, it is difficult to discern what might be inside each box; however, on closer inspection, there are worlds contained in the sculpture’s building blocks.

Each of the thirteen boxes is open in the direction of the viewer. You could think of each box as a display case or cubby hole filled with assemblages of wooden scraps that the artist has carefully composed. While one box is full of uniform blocks in a perfect grid formation; another has thin panels chaotically woven together; and others are full of scattered wooden triangles. To create the assemblages, the artist collected and transformed broken furniture and other wooden fragments from around New York City. She painted each constituent part the same matte black, giving the overall sculpture an imposing presence. Nevelson poetically referred to herself as an “architect of shadows,” inviting viewers to perceive her works on the cusp of solid form and ethereal void.