- Title
- Untitled
- Date Made
- 1967
- Medium
- Mixed media
- Dimensions
- 9 1/2 × 10 1/4 × 6 in. (24.13 × 26.04 × 15.24 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2024.84
- Collecting Area
- Modern Art
- Curatorial Notes
In 1967, John Outterbridge quit his day job at a Los Angeles production studio, abandoning painting and “concentrating on nothing but sculpture” for the next two years. During this intensive period of experimentation with wood, metal, and stone, he established a lifelong engagement with assemblage. Outterbridge grew up in North Carolina, where his father earned a living by recycling metal equipment. Moving to L.A. in the 1960s, the artist described the city as having an “assembled kind of culture” that resonated with a childhood surrounded by objects and materials his father salvaged and collected from hauling jobs. The integration of recycled urban detritus and found materials in his three-dimensional works echoes his personal philosophy: “It seems that we all assemble notions, directives, disciplines, disappointments. We put all these things together as we seek a mode of expression and a way to live.” In this work, Outterbridge cobbled an anthropomorphic visage out of debris, crafting a makeshift mask that hints at his heritage and his own assembled culture.
Lauren Hanson
- Selected Bibliography
- Hanson, Lauren, and Frances Lazare. Act on it!: Artists, Community, and the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles = ¡Actuemos!: Artistas, Comunidad y la Galería. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2025.
- Copyright
- © Estate of John Outterbridge
