Muro Series X, commissioned by and created at Storm King, is one in a series of monumental wall-like pieces by Mia Westerlund Roosen dating from the 1970s. These striking works were made by pouring concrete and asphalt to form thin, horizontal slabs, which, when upended, become vertical monoliths. Trowel marks preserved in the concrete provide surface variation, and Storm King’s example incorporates an oxidized steel plate at its center that enhances the work’s rough, weathered look.

Westerlund Roosen often employs simple geometric shapes. Working against trends toward strict geometry in the art of the 1970s, however, she imbued her works with sensuality and suggestive biomorphic power. Minimalist artists, she noted, “weren’t interested in giving life to an object; I am. They did not want to show the artist’s hand. . . . I felt perfectly free to take one of their hard-edged steel plates and fuzz up all the edges in my own feminine way to see what would happen.”