I think #2 works very well as abstract Paul,
For me, #1 feels too wide an angle, I can see far too much context, if I'd taken #1, I would;
a) crop from the RHS to remove the window frames
b) crop from the bottom to remove the second bit below
c) crop from the LHS so that the brightest lit edge of slat emerged from the top left corner of the composition
or zoom in to achieve that composition at the time of capture
Note that I did not say
move closer to get that composition, because you wouldn't, moving closer would affect the depth perspective of the elements making the composition, probably adversely. You may well already appreciate this yourself, but I mention it for the benefit of others with less experience who may be reading.
Personally I'm not too bothered by the 'out of focusness', else the texture might also give too much context or distract.
Talking of which, in #1, the edge of the slat that looks like it was damaged and over painted falls in to that category for me and I'd be tempted to clone that away in PS (YMMV).
I guess this brings a bigger question to mind; does an abstract image 'fail' if we can guess what it is?
My answer would be 'not always'
HTH,
Dave