Tony Smith (sculptor)

Die, 1962 A hollow steel cube just over six feet on every side, raised a little off the floor so that all twelve edges are visible. Six feet is close to the height of a tall person, and Smith knew the darker reading too, tying the size to the phrase "six feet under." What it asks is simple: stand beside it and notice how it measures you back. Asked why it was not larger, Smith said he was not making a monument; asked why not smaller, that he was not making an object. That in-between scale is the point. Some casts were fabricated after 1962. The Whitney Museum of American Art's example is not currently on view, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington holds another, so check before you go.