On view in Pour, Tear, Carve: Material Possibilities in the Collection is a virtual reconstruction of Antoine Pevsner’s Construction in Space, a sculpture made of Celluloid which has changed over time.

Working with Plastics
Antoine Pevsner was born in Russia and immigrated to France in 1923. He worked in a Constructivist style, inspired by the increasingly industrial world. Pevsner and his brother, artist Naum Gabo, were pioneers in exploring new media. They became fond of Celluloid (cellulose nitrate) for its flexibility and transparency; Pevsner used it to make Construction in Space (1929). However, this plastic changes color and deteriorates as it ages. Both artists abandoned it in favor of more durable materials such as acrylic and glass.

Left: Early photo of the sculpture before it began to decay. Right: Current deteriorated condition of the sculpture.

Close-up images of deteriorated condition

Deterioration
Duncan Phillips acquired Construction in Space in 1953. Three years later, when it was requested for an exhibition in France, Phillips noted the work’s fragility. The artist wrote to Phillips that if he sent the sculpture to the exhibition at the Museé d’art moderne, he would make the necessary repairs to the piece. The work went to Paris and repairs were made, but the plastic continued to deteriorate. In 1979, the work was sent to an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Conservators noted its severe discoloration and made repairs with yellow tinted epoxy to reinforce the once transparent object. Upon returning to The Phillips Collection, the object was placed in a wooden storage box and not shown again because of its poor condition. A handwritten note from 1987 indicates that pieces had “deteriorated” and it “needs re-gluing.”

Isolating the Sculpture
In 1996, conservators recommended isolating the object from the rest of the collection so that the acid off-gassing from the cellulose nitrate would not adversely affect other works in art storage. In 2015, a custom box was fabricated for Construction in Space and it was placed in a well-ventilated space in the storeroom with acid scavengers to absorb the off-gassing.

Inside of storage box with acid scavengers (long white bags). The green/yellow strips indicate the amount of off-gassing from the plastic.

A Virtual Reconstruction
Because the sculpture cannot be restored or exhibited intact again, conservators decided to preserve the work’s original appearance by making a virtual replica. Stefan Prosky, a 3-D animator and technology artist, made a virtual reconstruction of the sculpture using 800 digital images of the work and also studying early photographs.

Explore how artists in Pour, Tear, Carve: Material Possibilities in the Collection (on view through May 14) use various materials in different ways in their art, and how their choices convey meaning to their work.

Take a look at the works below that incorporate metal and consider:

• • What’s one detail you didn’t notice the first time you looked at each object?
• • What role does the metal play in stimulating the senses?

Valeska Soares, Fainting Couch, 2002, Stainless steel, textile, and flowers, 78 3/4 x 23 1/2 x 13 3/4 in., Gift from the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, Washington, DC, 2012

Valeska Soares, Fainting Couch, 2002

“I don’t like tricks when it comes to materials. . . . I need to feel that the work is true.”—Valeska Soares

Fainting Couch blends the use of organic (flowers) and inorganic (steel) materials to create an unexpected sensorial experience. Soares harnesses the intrinsic properties of her materials, allowing them to engage with and interact with each other as well as the space that they inhabit. Lie on Soares’s steel couch. How does the steel feel against your back? Can you smell the Stargazer lilies enclosed in the compartment below?

Nicholas Galanin, Let Them Enter Dancing Showing Their Faces: Thief, 2018, Monotype and gold leaf on paper, 30 x 21 in., Director’s Discretionary Fund, 2021

Nicholas Galanin, Let Them Enter Dancing Showing Their Faces: Thief, 2018

This work is drawn from Nicholas Galanin’s 2018 print series with the same name, derived from a Tlingit ancestral entrance dance where the face is revealed, not masked.

The artist views the spontaneity of the printmaking process as “an attempt at capturing cultural memory that is accessed through connections to land, through skinning a deer, through cleaning a salmon—and teaching your children to do all of that. We have these things ingrained in our memory and in our DNA. Whatever that feeling is, it’s not something you can look at, and it’s not something you can hold. But you can feel it, and it comes and goes.”

Alejandro Pintado, Perpendicular Time, 2014, Charcoal and acrylic on canvas with painted metal bar, 51 x 60 in., Director’s Discretionary Fund, 2016

Alejandro Pintado, Perpendicular Time, 2014

Alejandro Pintado uses charcoal on unprimed canvas to depict delicate, pastoral landscapes juxtaposed with geometric forms. The places Pintado convey are both real and imagined, representing scenes from 18th- and 19th-century paintings and engravings. His bold interventions—the strike of red across the canvas and the black-and-white metal bar—serve as a reminder that these places did not occur organically, but were constructed and formed.

Explore how artists in Pour, Tear, Carve: Material Possibilities in the Collection (on view through May 14) use various materials in different ways in their art, and how their choices convey meaning to their work.

Take a look at the works below that incorporate paper and consider:

• • Can you identify how paper is being used in each of these objects?
• • How have your lived experiences shaped how you view and think about the use of paper in these objects?
• • How will you see paper differently in the future?

Jae Ko, Untitled (JK 719), 2012, Rolled paper, glue and calligraphy ink, 55 x 13 x 10 in., Gift of James A. and Marsha Perry Mateyka, 2022

Jae Ko, Untitled (JK 719), 2012

“I like working with this paper, twisting it until it could no longer be twisted.”–Jae Ko

Jae Ko manipulates paper into three-dimensional forms, creating painted sculptural bundles that spill and flow and wall and floor pieces that fold and stack. For Untitled (JK 719), Ko transformed commercial adding machine receipt paper, removing the plastic spools, and rewinding the paper into large coils that explore the energy trapped inside the dense layers. Curving and twisting the roll three times then securing the spiral form in two parts, Ko invents a dynamic sculpture that explores the possibility and power of paper. Ko initiated this series of work in the early 2000s after an inspired visit to Inyo National Forest in California to see the dramatic, windswept bristlecone pines.

Joyce Wellman, Journey through Migration, 1985, Color viscosity etching, 22 x 16 in., Gift of the artist, 2022

Joyce Wellman, Journey through Migration, 1985

Through viscosity printing, which uses multiple colors of ink on a single plate, Wellman documents migration. Her abstracted print creates a contemporary complement to panels from Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series (1940-41).

“I [wanted to] create work in the printmaking medium that became vehicles by which the viewer could journey through contemplative space. It has always been through abstraction that I have sought to express my feelings.”—Joyce Wellman

Marta Pérez García, Nameless 7, 2022, Colored abaca handmade paper, 56 x 14 x 10 in., The Phillips Collection, Purchase through the Gift of Robert and Barbara Liotta (through the Sidney and Nina Josephs Trust) in honor of Dorothy Kosinski, 2022

Marta Pérez García, Nameless 7, 2022

“They’re headless because it’s not one particular person. . . . I tried to give, in a way, visibility to the women who are not here anymore, but at the same time for us to see in these bodies our lives.”—Marta Pérez García

Marta Pérez García’s Nameless series, from which this hanging figure is drawn, was created in response to the increase in domestic violence during the COVID-19 lockdown, when many, particularly women and children, were forced to isolate with their abusers. Nameless 7 is made of handmade and colored abaca paper which the artist wet and shaped across the form, a commercial mannequin. According to Pérez García, “abaca does whatever—it fights back . . . there is the surprise of the materials; it has its own voice.”