Aesthetic Function in Space

A pioneering modernist working in Los Angeles from the 1920s until the early 1950s, Knud Merrild believed that avant-garde artists should challenge the boundaries of the picture plane by expanding outward. He assembled Aesthetic Function in Space out of shaped pieces of Masonite, corrugated cardboard, wood, and a small mirror, layering the forms to create a three-dimensional construction that unites elements of painting, collage, and sculpture. Described as being a “space composition” or “space painting,” this work is an early American example of a wall construction. It is also the first to be made by any California artist, noteworthy given Merrild’s distance from avant-garde art centers. When exhibited in San Francisco, local critics noted the work’s highly radical form, referring to it as “one of the most ultra of the modern paintings.”