Mark di Suvero’s work has helped to shape our notion of modern sculpture. His large scale, spatially dynamic compositions, created using such industrial materials as steel I-beams and salvaged steel, reveal a masterful sense of form, composition, and movement, while also conveying poignant emotion and, frequently, a sense of play. While other artists of di Suvero’s generation employ industrial fabricators to execute their designs on a large scale, di Suvero has compared his artistic process with physical labor. He executes and... Read more

Mark di Suvero’s work has helped to shape our notion of modern sculpture. His large scale, spatially dynamic compositions, created using such industrial materials as steel I-beams and salvaged steel, reveal a masterful sense of form, composition, and movement, while also conveying poignant emotion and, frequently, a sense of play.

While other artists of di Suvero’s generation employ industrial fabricators to execute their designs on a large scale, di Suvero has compared his artistic process with physical labor. He executes and installs his sculptures himself, working with a small team of trusted workers. Di Suvero does not begin with preliminary drawings; much of his creative process occurs during the process of welding, bending and bolting together his works. Di Suvero has spoken of his use of the industrial crane as a way of extending his arm, as though allowing him to paint with an oversized brush.

Di Suvero’s connection to contemporary culture is evident in both his sculpture and his working practice. Steel—the basis of modern manufacture and production—has been his primary medium since the late 1960s. But while steel is habitually used in industry in a straightforward and impersonal manner, di Suvero instead enlivens and invigorates the material: he transforms it into whimsical, organic forms, and creates sculptures with precisely balanced, often moving, elements. Di Suvero elevates steel to high art, and subverts the material’s presumed utilitarian purpose; in so doing he carves out a place for art and contemplation within the industrial world.