Sculpture
Margo’s earliest artistic practice involved creating Pop Art-inspired, life-sized, working objects in 1970— a rotary telephone, vacuum cleaner, parking meter, pencil sharpener, and gum ball machine.
She went on to produce a large body of sculpture—the epitome of which are elements created for her solo-show Out of Service in 1996.
The installation at Trans-Hudson in Jersey City, New Jersey, included many sculptural objects: scattered plaster cast liquor bottles titled Bottles (1995); a series of “mute objects” on cement brick pillars such as “Shoeshine I, II, III, IV”, (1995); Lisa Steinberg’s Rabbit Hutch (1995), an empty rabbit cage (referring to the meticulous care Lisa paid to her rabbit despite being the victim of child abuse herself); and The Way She Loved Him (1996) an ironing board over which is carefully draped a sheer white shirt and a salvaged; as well as a full-sized camper trailer stripped down to wood and metal entitled Trailer (1995).
“Here we have a psychic graveyard of modest hopes and decimated illusions. The shoe shine box, once synonymous with subjugation…emerges as a quirky symbol of unattainable freedom. The rabbit hutch, often a child’s plaything, is both prison and dream space. Elegant whiskey bottles, the precursors of self-denial, illness, and decline are lodged everywhere…”
Shoe Shine Box, 1995. Street wood, polish, plaster, ink iron, 14.5 x 10.5.13 in.
Worried Well, 1995. Plaster and ink.
Lisa Steinberg’s Rabbit Hutch, 1995. Snow fence, chicken wire, Kremer pigments. 41 x 44 x 23 in.
Bottles, 1995. Plaster and ink
Shoe Shine Box, 1995. Street wood, polish, plaster, ink iron, 14.5 x 10.5.13 in.
Bottles, 1995. Plaster and ink
Margo Pelletier with Hoover Vacuum Cleaner, 1970. Cardboard, rope, plastic, shredded paper.
Pencil Sharpener, 1970. Cardboard, plastic, pencil shavings
Rotary Phone, 1970. Wood, paint, plastic.