Artwork Page for Exact Ruler II

Details / Information for Exact Ruler II

Exact Ruler II

1974

Sylvia Plimack Mangold

(American, b. 1938)
Culture
America
Medium
acrylic on canvas
Measurements
61 x 76.2 cm (24 x 30 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Agnes Gund in memory of Mary Krogness 2025.147
Copyright
© 1974 Sylvia Plimack Mangold
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

Sylvia Plimack Mangold used rulers as tools to make her paintings before incorporating them into the paintings’ compositions.

Description

Exact Ruler II (1974) depicts a stainless steel ruler, lying horizontally across a span of vertical wooden floorboards that fill the painting’s frame. It belongs to Sylvia Plimack Mangold’s series of paintings, made between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s, comprising meticulous renderings of floors, often with rulers, graph paper, and masking tape. As they engage numerous art historical traditions, these paintings also model—and encourage—the practice of paying exquisite attention to one’s surroundings.
A horizontally oriented acrylic painting depicts a stainless steel ruler lying horizontally in the approximate center of the vertical, light orange-brown wooden floorboards that fill the painting. Fine striations run vertically down the wood. The ruler displays the numbers for seventeen inches on either side and, across the center, the text "EXACT LEVEL & TOOL MFG. Co., Inc. HIGH BRIDGE. N.J., U.S.A. Y-8."

Exact Ruler II

1974

Sylvia Plimack Mangold

(American, b. 1938)
America

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