“˜Gray Column’ at Getty Museum reflects De Wain Valentine’s lifelong fascination with plastics

A visitor walking into the J. Paul Getty Museum’s new exhibition “From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine’s Gray Column” will notice a quote from artist De Wain Valentine printed across the wall: “I would like to have some way, a magic saw, to cut out large chunks of ocean or sky and say “˜Here it is.'” In the center of the room stands the towering, prismatic sculpture known as the “Gray Column,” the form Valentine, who once taught at UCLA, chose to represent his vision.