Corrupted Minimalism
Michelle Lopez, Safety Dream, 2023, steel and nylon, 111 x 73.5 x 85in. Photo: Nick Missel. Courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council.
Lopez uses the language of minimalism – industrial materials, abstract forms, and space – to, as she describes it, “corrupt minimalism.” Instead of rigid structures and industrial bravado, she introduces fragility and vulnerability. Her materials bend, collapse, or disappear altogether, destabilizing the power and authority of the male-centered minimalist object. Lopez looks to feminist post-minimalist artists like Jackie Winsor, her mentor, and Eva Hesse, both of whom emphasized process, industrial materials, and tension between stability and vulnerability, as models and inspiration. To explore the history of minimalism and Michelle Lopez’s work in the context of minimalism, look at these resources.
Visibility/Invisibility
Michelle Lopez, GHOST TRESSES IV (AKIRA FLOOR), 2023, bronze, chrome, approx. 3.5 x 16 x 14in. Photo: Elon Schoenholz. Courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council.
Central to Lopez’s work is a tension between presence and absence, between what can be seen and what is concealed. Negative space is the area around and between the solid parts of a sculpture or drawing – it’s the “empty” space that helps define the shape of what we see. In her work, the negative space is just as active as the materials themselves. She often deploys reflective materials like glass and mirrored surfaces to implicate the viewer, turning spectatorship into a self-reflective act. As a Filipina-American artist, GHOST TRESSES, for instance, explores the politics of disembodiment and racialized invisibility in response to fetishized images of Asian women in art and culture. Explore how Lopez thinks about visibility with these resources.
Political Precarity
Michelle Lopez, Blue Angels (Delta), 2012, mirrored stainless steel, automotive paint, powder coated aluminum, approx. 120 x 36 x 24in. Photo: Heather Rasmussen. Courtesy of the artist and Ballroom Marfa.
Lopez’s work investigates the precarity of social and political structures, often through visual metaphors of collapse and fragmentation, and what it means to have a political identity amidst a sense of tenuous balance. She reflects on violence, authoritarianism, and the failures of nationalism: “my work has a lot to do with creating sculptures out of these wilted ideologies.” In Halyard, Lopez evokes everything about a flag but the flag itself, and in doing so, “drains the ‘flag’ of its primary purpose of nationalism and patriotism,” raising questions about the imagined community of a nation. Dive deeper into these themes with these resources.
Architecture/infrastructure – public space
Michelle Lopez, Single Line/Ropehenge, 2025, nylon, steel, fiberglass, resin, enamel, 88.5 x 72.5 x 110in. Photo: Philip Maisel. Courtesy of the artist and California College of the Arts, Wattis Institute.
Lopez uses materials like steel and rope alongside scale to explore how architecture and, oftentimes invisible, infrastructure shape our embodied experience of space. Her sculptures question the stability of public spaces and critique how the built environment reflects dominant systems of power and control. Lopez’s sculptures, like Single Line/Ropehenge, act as portals and re-frame what it’s like to be a body in public space. Use these resources to learn more about the role of infrastructure, architecture, and public space in art.