Mark di Suvero – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Figulo #4 of 8

Posted by Cindy on July 15, 2013

Jul 152013

Crissy Field

Figulo (2005-11) 47′ × 55′ painted steel, steel buoys – collection of the artist

From the Brooklyn Rail when this piece was exhibited at Governor’s Island: From afar, it looks to be a drafting compass fit for the gods. Its red extension beams ignite in the afternoon sunlight. At close range, the dimensions shift perceptually. The sculpture’s backbone extends outward as joints become gracefully visible, angles more acute. The sky seems closer than ever, as meandering clouds seem to collapse into the slats between the beams.

Magma by Mark di Suvero #2 of 8

Posted by Cindy on July 12, 2013

Jul 122013

Crissy Field

“Magma” (2008-12), steel sculpture by Mark di Suvero, measures 25 feet tall by 48 feet wide. Leant by the artist, this piece is on public view for the first time. Magma appears as a giant sawhorse in which a 48-foot I-beam is supported between two of the artist’s traditional, uneven tripods. It is distinguished by a big pair of cut circles (or C’s, or G’s) that can slide along the horizontal beam, matched by a pair of similar rings that wrap around the joint at one of the ends.

Mark di Suvero, has other pieces permanently around San Francisco.

di Suvero was born in Shanghai, China, in 1933. He immigrated to the United States in 1941 and received a BA in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley. Di Suvero began showing his sculpture in the late 1950’s and is one of the most important American artists to emerge from the Abstract Expressionist era. A pioneer in the use of steel, di Suvero is without peer in the exhibition of public sculpture worldwide.

Dreamcatcher first in a series of 8

Posted by Cindy on July 10, 2013

Jul 102013

Crissy Field

In light of the closing of SFMOMA for its expansion, the museum is placing art “all around town”.

This exhibit of EIGHT of Mark Di Suvero’s massive metal sculptures is the first of the series. As much as I love and respect the curators of the SFMOMA, I have always felt that they never quite understood the subtleties of culling an exhibit down to its finer points.

This retrospective is no different. It is the opinion of this writer, that large sculpture should either overwhelm its environment so that it becomes the focal point, or is overwhelmed by its environment so that the eye focuses on the piece. In the case of this exhibit the sculptures not only compete with the background of road construction, but with each other.

None-the-less, local boy makes good is the point of this exhibit and it is well worth the visit if you are given the opportunity.

This piece is titled Dreamcatcher. Dreamcatcher is 55 feet high and normally resides at Storm King in New York. The piece was done from 2005 to 2012. There are four unusually high and symmetrical tilting beams joined at the top, where they blossom into an interlocked array of cut-out steel circles. Held horizontally to a stainless steel spire in the middle and above the circles is a giant hand of four splayed similar beams, joined at one end, which blow freely in the wind, “catching dreams”.

Storm King is one of America’s finest outdoor art galleries, and a space where large sculpture is given its true due by the vast open spaces that surround each piece.

Lincoln Park – Pax Jerusalem

Posted by Cindy on April 15, 2012

Apr 152012

Lincoln Park

Legion of Honor

Pax Jerusalem by Mark di Suvero

This piece sits on the sculpture pad in front of the Legion of Honor, one of our finer museums in San Francisco. It is by Mark di Suvero, who has been in this blog before. It was controversial the day it was installed. Many felt is was not representative of the quality people had come to expect from di Suvero, it also was a runner up, when the city lost out on a sculpture by di Suvero’s boyhood friend Richard Serra. Di Suvero and Richard Serra grew up on the same block in San Francisco. Both their fathers worked on the docks. Being by the water and the docks and the wharfs and the piers plays a powerful role in their work.

The piece is owned by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco and was purchased in 1999.

The Legion of Honor was the gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, wife of the sugar magnate and thoroughbred racehorse owner/breeder Adolph B. Spreckels. The building is a three-quarter-scale version of the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur also known as the Hôtel de Salm in Paris. This version is by architects George Applegarth and H. Guillaume. It was completed in 1924.

The Embarcadero – Sea Change

Posted by Cindy on January 24, 2000

Jan 242000

The Embarcadero

Sea Change by Mark di Suvero

At Pier 40 on the lawn near the baseball park is this giant sculpture, that you can see from blocks away. Constructed in 1995 it is 70 feet tall and weights 10 tons. The circular top moves with the wind.

Marco Polo “Mark” di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended UC Berkeley to study Philosophy. While working in construction, he was critically injured in a freight elevator accident and focused all his attention on sculpture.

While in rehabilitation, he learned to work with an arc welder. His early works were large outdoor pieces that incorporated railroad ties, tires, scrap metal and structural steel. This exploration has transformed over time into a focus on I-beams and heavy gauge metal. Many of the pieces contain sections that are allowed to swing and rotate giving the overall forms a considerable degree of motion.