Reaching a height of nearly seventy feet, Endless Column is among the tallest works at Storm King. Tal Streeter called it “a kind of drawing in space, which will take your eyes in a staccato movement to the top and on into the sky.” Streeter worked out the sculpture’s engineering with the help of two maquettes, and he accentuated the linear, lightning-bolt-like form with a coat of bright red paint. This connection to lightning is not merely aesthetic: Endless Column, like many other tall steel sculptures at Storm King, is grounded with a cable that can direct lightning strikes safely into the earth, preventing damage to the sculpture.

Endless Column marks a pivotal moment in Streeter’s career, when his fascination with the act of looking upward led him to Japan to study kite making. Streeter, who remained in Japan from 1969 to 1971, met kite makers, attended kite festivals, and crafted his own kites, all while photographing and writing about his experiences. His travels soon extended throughout Asia, leading Streeter to develop publications and teach others about the creation and significance of kites. At the intersection of his contrasting practices of making several-ton steel sculptures and ethereal, seemingly weightless paper kites lay the impulse “to make objects that drew the eye away from the sculpture and led it right out into the landscape or sky.” The work’s title is a direct homage to the modernist sculptor Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Column (1937), installed in Târgu Jiu, Romania, which similarly takes the shape of an abstract, rhythmic column reaching up into the sky.