The smooth curves and finely polished walnut of Claudia Comte’s Sculpture Object 31 offer a visual and tactile contrast to the plinth, or base, upon which it sits. The artist has used a chain saw to score rough, parallel lines into the plinth’s surface, which has also been scorched by a blow torch. This juxtaposition of refined and rough forms resonates with Comte’s humor-laced efforts to assess the influence of modern art (from the early- and mid-20th century) on the visual landscape of today. In this piece, the organic undulations of the walnut component evoke elegant 20th-century sculptures by Hans Arp, Constantin Brancusi, and Henry Moore, whose The Three Rings, 1966, is on view in the Contemporary Wing. At the same time, the black, lined faces of Comte’s base allude to Frank Stella’s highly esteemed black paintings, including Club Onyx, 1959, in the BMA collection. With her use of unorthodox and rather clumsy tools, as well as an “M”-shaped form that resembles banal corporate logos, Comte seems to suggest that both contemporary artists and society have taken license with the pristine modernist aesthetics of the last century.