A171

Although Jackie Ferrara’s postmodern sculptures had formerly incorporated rope, cotton batting, flax, and even taxidermized animals, in 1974 she created her first piece solely from plywood: “Hollow Core Pyramid.” While she had initially intended to cover the form with cotton batting (as she had a group of stepped forms shown in October 1973), she ultimately felt this was unneeded. Ferrara debuted her new, minimal works in a November 1974 exhibition at the A. M. Sachs Gallery in New York. In the first years of creating them, she titled them according to a descriptive code: ‘A’ meaning angle, ‘C’ curve, ‘V’ vertical, etc. The piece proposed for acquisition, made in fall 1976, is titled “A171” according to this system. Ferrara’s interest in modular units and progressions draws comparisons to Minimalist sculptors such as Sol LeWitt, Robert Smithson, and Carl Andre, among others. She soon departed from their aesthetic, however, as she began integrating cutaway sections, curves, asymmetry, and apertures into her sculptures. Through these devices, she drew in space, using gaps between the pieces of wood to depict forms in the negative, resulting in heightened dynamism.