A welded steel structure draped with tangled ropes wedged with fids (conical wooden tools used on boats to secure lines and sails), Methane Sea was featured in the last exhibition of Adkins’s work organized during his lifetime, Nenuphar, which explored obscure affinities between the African-American scientist and inventor George Washington Carver (1864–1943) and the French artist Yves Klein (1928–1962). Adkins explained that Methane Sea “had to do with [their] different relationships to the sea and to ships.” Carver was born a slave and Klein was from the maritime city of Nice. Adkins continued, “Both of them . . . dealt in abstract worlds . . . and both of them dealt with microscopic and macroscopic things.”

Gallery label from

Projects 107: Lone Wolf Recital Corps, August 19-October 9, 2017.

Medium Wood, steel, rope, and tape
Dimensions 78 x 40 x 55" (198.1 x 101.6 x 139.7 cm)
Credit Gift of Agnes Gund
Object number 247.2014
Department Painting & Sculpture

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Terry Adkins

Terry Adkins

American, 1953–2014 5 works online

From the late 1970s until his death, in February 2014, artist and musician Terry Adkins developed a multifaceted practice that integrated sculpture, live music, spoken language, and video.

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