On Uncertainty and Anne Truitt
In the few photographs that exist of Anne Truitt in her studio, she is always wearing a placid, nearly inscrutable expression. She makes eye contact, but her mind is elsewhere. In 1962, perhaps she is thinking about Tor, the imposing poplar slab she has just bisected and layered with dark paint. In 1986, perhaps it is about the pale blue buoyancy of Landfall (1970), and how she will finish the two sculptures towering beside her.
…
I looked at photos of Truitt and thought about writing this essay during a recent visit to Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. It was just a coincidence, I knew; nothing could connect Truitt with Cambodia. And yet, as I walked among the remaining jambs of
the Bayon, whose sandstone inscriptions and flowered patterns have eroded into abstraction, I couldn’t help but think of Truitt’s columns. Staring up at the faces of the Buddhist king Jayavarman VII (r. 1181–1218 CE) that emerged on all four sides of every tower, I wondered how much they had seen. His almond-shaped eyes, broad nose, and upturned lips are benevolent, but his empire was not achieved peacefully. (After all, how many empires are?) There is history in these forms: the laborer’s initial touch, the alterations made by later kings of different religious persuasions, and the looting and violence that occurred when the Khmer Rouge made the temple their base. I felt as if Truitt’s sculpture must be similarly knowledgeable, having subsumed the details of her life and observed everything since. Indeed, she titled an early cerulean stacked sculpture Summer Sentinel (1963–72), and used the designation later in her career as well.
This essay was published as part of the “Inside Burger Collection” series. ArtAsiaPacific issue 143, May/June 2025.
