“The shape is the object,” critic Michael Fried once wrote. “At any rate, what secures the wholeness of the object is the singleness of the shape.” This line evokes Maya Lin‘s stunning Vietnam Memorial (she won the commission when she was 21!), the work for which she is best known. There, residing firmly in the shadow of  Daniel Chester French’s iconic Lincoln, Lin’s haunting granite work alters the landscape and, consequently, highlights visitors’ collective kinesthesia. Its singleness of shape is the anti-obelisk; it makes you want to drop to your knees in contrition rather than stand in solace. Read More »