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

The temporary installation in Paris last fall of 10 outdoor carburet of iron sculptures by Mark di Suvero was noteworthy upon several counts. First of all, the scale of the shoot forward which ran from Sept. 15 to Nov. 15 1997 was immense. There were plastic arts reaching heights of 35, 40 70 and smooth close to 100 feet, and these enormous carbonized iron 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 novel Bibliotheque Nationale de France in the east. The statuarys some of which were painted orange on the other hand many of which were raw, slightly rusted carbonized iron also invaded some of the greatest in quantity famous sites in the city's center including the Esplanade de Invalides and the Place St.-Germain-des-Pres. Also significant was the chronological view of the project. With plastic arts ranging from 1967 to 1997 the [i]tout ensemble[/i] was in fact a dispersed retrospective of di Suvero's outdoor work. Like other new citywide exhibitions of di Suvero's statuarys in Valence (1990), Chalon-sur-Saone where the artist maintains a studio (1992) and Venice (1995 as part of that year's Biennale), the shoot forward offered the public a chance to view, more or les simultaneously, a broad range of an artist's public work. Lastly, through 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 goe back more than 20 years. Having left the U for Europe in 1970 to declare 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 statuarys were on view around that Burgundian city.(1) Providing a faculty of perception of continuity, one of the 1973 works which was first seen at Chalon-sur-Saone, Ange de Orages (Angel of Storms), was also upon view in Paris.

The earliest piece, sited at the Invalides, was a 40-foot-high painted carbonized iron work from 1967 titled Are Years What? (For Marianne Moore) in which four massive orange I-beams lean against single another camp-fire-style, with a similar fifth upright beam helping to retain the casual-looking structure in place. Also helping to clutch these colorful girders steady was a carbonized iron cable stretched tautly between the tops of sum of two units of them. Dangling at the extreme point of another length of cable was an I-beam V shape that make go rounded slowly in the wind, a detail which evok a crane upon a building site as well as a very large broken toy. This bulky mobile uncompounded body also served as a reminder that di Suvero probably learned as plenteous from Calder as he did from Julio Gonzalez and David Smith.

Divided by dint of a wide, busy street, the Esplanade de Invalides is a large green-grass rectangle bordered upon east and west by several lines of trees behind which rise elegant, five-story, gray-roofed buildings. Stretching across the southerly side is the grand inn des Invalides with its gilded dome and spire, while the north lay opens up to a view across the Pont Alexandre III (graced by means of four gilded statues atop columns) to the curving cover of the Grand Palais. The di Suvero statuarys so markedly different in spirit from their elegant surroundings, were evenly spaced around the lawns, sum of two units to each side of the dividing highway Tallest and perhaps most distinctive was the 70-foot-high Joie de Vivre (1997) The bottom half of this aptly named statuary is an orange tripod conformation from which sprouts a similar tripod, sole inverted so that its lengthy legs poke up toward the canopy of heaven The legs resemble huge flower main stocks whose petals some passing giant has sheared not upon Encircling the midpoint where the tripods fitting are two ovals of flat carburet of iron which frame the steel caplike forms that grasp each tripod structure together. Like all the di Suvero in Paris, Joie de Vivre sat upon a hard flat base, in this case three carbonized iron sheets bearing the stenciled words "Made in Ukraine."

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

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