Torso Hybrid

Date

1986

Creator

In many of his earlier sculptures Richard Hunt utilized the raw, cast-off materials of the American industrial landscape (here, automobile bumpers), and he made no effort to conceal the material's elemental form or appearance by adding paint or chemical patinas. As seen in Abstract Expressionist painting, the fabrication process is apparent; in fact, it is an integral part of the work.  Not only are Hunt's welds visible, so is the discoloration of the metal from the heat of the cutting torch, and we can see where he hammered the steel, as easily as we can follow the swirling patterns of the grinding wheel. Commenting on his improvisational fabrication process, Hunt describes his work as[:]   The kind of sculpture where you can take material and work it and rework it, cut something off, reposition something. Something can either be permanent or impermanent, it can stay that way or you can take it apart, heat it, and bend it another way. It's kind of like painting over painting, taking turpentine and washing something off, leaving a little bit of it there, and throwing something else on. There's bringing into sculpture the Abstract Expressionist sensibility. from African-American Voices (exhibition, 2016)