David Smith - Cubi III

David Smith's Cubi series featured a collection of 28 stainless steel sculptures that undoubtedly embodied his abstract expressionist style. The piece above, titled Cubi III, was the third sculpture of the series; it essentially is six different stainless steel cubes affixed to a platform. It stands at almost 8 feet tall and at first glance to some might just look like a stack of boxes. Upon further investigation, I realized that the figure resembles a tall, strong figure. This is similar to other works in the Cubi series in the sense that Smith used his artistic talents to assemble bulky pieces of metal to vaguely resemble human figures. I find it intriguing how one can manage to make such rigid shapes even remotely relatable to something as complex to depict as a human figure, and Smith does just that with this series of works.