Abstract (Semi) and Phantasmagorical

The Wall Street Journal
by Peter Plagens

December 24, 2011

The centerpieces of this gallery exhibition are four hanging sculptures, each about a yard long, that look like amalgams of clipper ships and jellyfish. They're ingeniously balanced with hanging fishing weights of different sizes and shapes. The nice touch of dirtying up the rear surfaces of the mobiles' "sails" adds to their feeling of soaring optimistically through the air. But the nicest touch is simply Ms. Bontecou's matchless deftness in combining volumetric and linear form to wring an awful lot of emotive response from nothing but untitled things.

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