Tenth Stone

Between 1967 and 1969, Bontecou created a group of large flower sculptures made of vacuum-formed plastic whose centers trail long tendrils and which resemble gas masks. She envisioned these to be the products of a post-apocalyptic world, commenting that “I was doing a lot of drawings of flowers prior to [the sculptures]. And I thought, ‘this is all we’re going to have left. Make a few plastic flowers in the world and that will be it. Give them a few [gas] masks, let them survive.’” With Tenth Stone, Bontecou experimented with several subtle colors, but settled on a simple black for the final, published print. The flower’s petals and stem are riveted like metal, merging the botanical and the mechanical to create a disturbing hybrid that reflects, among other things, Bontecou’s fears for the environment.