A season of steel in the City of Light: the works of sculptor Mark di Suvero on display in Paris, France

Art in America, July, 1998 by Raphael Rubinstein

The temporary installation in Paris last fall of 10 outdoor steel sculptures by Mark di Suvero was noteworthy on several counts. First of all, the scale of the project, which ran from Sept. 15 to Nov. 15, 1997, was immense. There were sculptures reaching heights of 35, 40, 70 and even close to 100 feet, and these enormous steel constructions were sited throughout the city, from the Parc de la Villette in the north to the Quai Andre Citroen in the west, and the new Bibliotheque Nationale de France in the east. The sculptures, some of which were painted orange but many of which were raw, slightly rusted steel, also invaded some of the most famous sites in the city's center, including the Esplanade des Invalides and the Place St.-Germain-des-Pres. Also significant was the chronological scope of the project. With sculptures ranging from 1967 to 1997, the ensemble was in fact a dispersed retrospective of di Suvero's outdoor work. Like other recent citywide exhibitions of di Suvero's sculptures in Valence (1990), Chalon-sur-Saone where the artist maintains a studio (1992) and Venice (1995, as part of that year's Biennale), the project offered the public a chance to view, more or less simultaneously, a broad range of an artist's public work. Lastly, by way of introduction to what its organizers (the city of Paris and Paris Musees) billed as "Mark di Suvero Paris 1997," the interaction between di Suvero's forceful I-beam constructions and the elegant facades and old-world spaces of the French capital enhanced one's appreciation of the vision of this prominent American sculptor.

Actually, di Suvero's experience with citywide exhibitions in France goes back more than 20 years. Having left the U.S. for Europe in 1970 to protest the war in Vietnam, di Suvero took up part-time residence in Chalon-sur-Saone in 1973 and from October '73 to May '74, six of his large-scale sculptures were on view around that Burgundian city.(1) Providing a sense of continuity, one of the 1973 works which was first seen at Chalon-sur-Saone, Ange des Orages (Angel of Storms), was also on view in Paris.

The earliest piece, sited at the Invalides, was a 40-foot-high painted steel work from 1967 titled Are Years What? (For Marianne Moore) in which four massive orange I-beams lean against one another camp-fire-style, with a similar fifth upright beam helping to keep the casual-looking structure in place. Also helping to hold these colorful girders steady was a steel cable stretched tautly between the tops of two of them. Dangling at the end of another length of cable was an I-beam V shape that turned slowly in the wind, a detail which evoked a crane on a building site as well as a huge broken toy. This bulky mobile element also served as a reminder that di Suvero probably learned as much from Calder as he did from Julio Gonzalez and David Smith.

Divided by a wide, busy street, the Esplanade des Invalides is a large green-grass rectangle bordered on east and west by several rows of trees behind which rise elegant, five-story, gray-roofed buildings. Stretching across the south side is the grand Hotel des Invalides with its gilded dome and spire, while the north opens up to a view across the Pont Alexandre III (graced by four gilded statues atop columns) to the curving roof of the Grand Palais. The di Suvero sculptures, so markedly different in spirit from their elegant surroundings, were evenly spaced around the lawns, two to each side of the dividing street. Tallest and perhaps most distinctive was the 70-foot-high Joie de Vivre (1997). The bottom half of this aptly named sculpture is an orange tripod structure from which sprouts a similar tripod, only inverted so that its long legs poke up toward the sky. The legs resemble huge flower stems whose petals some passing giant has sheared off. Encircling the midpoint where the tripods meet are two ovals of flat steel which frame the steel caplike forms that hold each tripod structure together. Like all the di Suveros in Paris, Joie de Vivre sat on a hard flat base, in this case three steel sheets bearing the stenciled words "Made in Ukraine."

Some months later, on Feb. 10, 1998, Joie de Vivre again went on public view, this time in New York City at the St. John's Rotary exit of the Holland Tunnel in lower Manhattan, a site which has previously played host to large-scale sculptures by Richard Serra and Tony Smith. Although the Holland Tunnel exit shares the Invalides' heavy traffic, the two sites could not be more different. Surrounded by warehouses, some of them converted into having spaces, others still functioning and funky, the rotary is flanked by white gravel and a few trees. A pedestrian bridge provides the only real vantage point onto the central area where Joie de Vivre rises up. While on the Invalides, its industrial materials had appeared in stark contrast to the surroundings, here the long orange I-beams look perfectly at home.

The other two Invalides sculptures are made from unpainted steel of a dark brown color, and on an early November day it was impossible not to notice the autumnal quality of the orange and rust-brown constructions. Galileo (1996) features two upright I-beams, one jagged like a lightning bolt. Converging in the center of this over-45-foot-high work are two more angled I-beams and several circular collars of flat steel. Even without the hint of the title, the dense, interlocked forms are strongly reminiscent of astrolabes and other antique instruments for measuring the heavens. Interestingly, set into the grass not far away is the Institut Geographique National's small plaque marking an important measuring point in the geodetic survey of the country. Nearby is another marker with a less scientific function: "Jeux de ballon strictement interdits." On the day of my visit, this command was being flagrantly ignored by the soccer players whose game frequently passed not only around but even underneath and through di Suvero's sculptures.