Painted welded steel, 89 x 79 x 33, 1999.
An overture is an opening. The word is the French ouverture, and it names the piece an orchestra plays before the curtain rises as well as the first approach one person makes to another. The sculpture builds the opening and leaves out what lies beyond it. Two tall uprights stand apart, a slim column with a molded cap at the left and a high plate with a swelling curved profile at the right, and the gap between them is a doorway. Rounded steps spread in front of it like the apron of a stage, with a row of small studs along the lowest edge. A ledge is fixed to the left and a small seat to the right, and between them the threshold is furnished for a wait.
The sculpture is placed against a wall, and the doorway opens onto that wall. Everything that signals approach is present: steps, flanking posts, a cap over the column, a seat to wait on. Nothing signals arrival. A doorway marks the line between where one stands and where one is going, and this one has no other side.
An overture is the music heard before anything is staged, and in this piece nothing follows it. The doorway is all approach, with no room beyond.
