A.M.X.,

1969–70

A wooden head carved from a discarded telephone pole and wrapped in a leather harness affixed with nails, A.M.X. belongs to a series that the artist provocatively called “self-portraits.” By representing herself as an anonymous, ungendered, masked, and bound figure, Grossman questioned the possibilities for self-expression at a political moment marked by tumultuous movements for social, sexual, and racial liberation, all under the shadow of the Vietnam War. Refusing viewers’ access to a specific identity or interior psychological state, A.M.X. contested the historical conventions of sculptural portraiture. The Museum acquired A.M.X. the year it was made, reflecting its increasing openness to artistic radicalism.