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Collections Molecule

Collections Molecule

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Image
Courtesy Walker Art Center
Rights
Copyright retained by the artist

Copyright

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Title
Molecule
Date
1977–1983
Dimensions
height 456 inches
Materials
steel, paint
Location
On view at the Walker Art Center

Object Details

Type
Sculpture
Accession Number
1991.2.1-.5
Inscriptions
unsigned
Credit Line
Gift of Honeywell, Inc. in honor of Harriet and Edson W. Spencer, 1991

artwork entry Mark di Suvero, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, 1998

The monumental scale and sweeping gestures of this red-painted sculpture are characteristic of the enormous outdoor structures Mark di Suvero has been making since the 1970s, using cranes to manipulate the massive industrial materials with which he works. Here, a pair of enormous steel beams meet at their ends, creating a triangular form that tips at an alarmingly improbable angle. At the point of the beams' juncture are sections of two flat, centerless discs. A longer beam forms the final leg of the tripod, but travels on some 38 feet into the air, piercing a third disc interwoven with the other two at the point of intersection. The cumulative effect recalls all the visual and emotive force we attach to the atomic world: dynamic, red-hot, powerful, and strangely elegant. Molecule, like all of di Suvero’s large-scale sculptures, invites the viewer to inspect its lines and spaces from every angle.

Jenkins, Janet, ed. Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 1998, no. 40.

© 1998 Walker Art Center