About
Reception for the Artist: Saturday, May 5th 6 – 8 pm
Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new sculpture by Mark di Suvero. The exhibition features two monumental works, Evviva Amore (2001), and Ulalu (2001). These new structures continue di Suvero's lifelong investigation of the seemingly effortless drawing and balance through space of industrial steel. Evviva Amore and Ulalu span the gallery and stretch well into its corners, enveloping the viewer and challenging the confines of the indoors.
"As heir to both the structural rigor of Cubo-Constructivism as well as to the gestural expansiveness of Abstract Expressionism, di Suvero was able to synthesize the divergent tributaries of mainstream modernism – including the engineered movement of kinetic art and the spontaneity of automatic Surrealist 'drawing in air'. His genius lies in his unique ability to fuse the excitement of the momentary – expressed in the potential for imminent change of the swinging, twirling and precariously poised elements – with the gravity of a timeless geometry and the engineered stability and intuitive equilibrium that his hard-won mastery of structural balances makes possible."
Barbara Rose, "Modernism and Memory", Mark di Suvero. Valencia: Ivam Centre Julio Gonzalez, 1995.
Born in Shanghai of Italian descent, di Suvero moved to New York from California in 1957, where he defined his signature style. A major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art was held in 1975, and he was the first living artist to have a one-person show in the Jardin de Tuilieries at the Louvre that same year. Recently, di Suvero participated in the 1995 Venice Biennale with monumental works installed along the Grand Canal, and in 1998, he installed another city-wide retrospective of large-scale sculptures in Paris.
