The abstract art of the 1960s often made no allusion to any experience or subject beyond the artwork itself. This is true of Nigel Lendon’s Slab construction 11, the anonymous quality of its fabrication a departure from the expressiveness of traditional modelling or carving. The simple stacking of identical units to create form embodies a modernist philosophy of sculpture; Lendon considered the industrial principle of assembled components appropriate to the times.

This work was included in the groundbreaking 1968 exhibition ‘The Field’ at the National Gallery of Victoria, which showcased Australian contributions to the latest developments in international abstraction. Slab construction 11 exemplifies the prominence of painted constructions in art of this period, which imbued artworks with a tantalising ambiguity between painting and sculpture.