Mark di Suvero's Early Masterpiece Reconstructed at Paula Cooper Gallery

Mark di Suvero's 1964-65 sculpture Nova Albion has been reconstructed at Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea, featuring a 24-foot-high steel and wood construction originally built on a northern California beach. The steel elements were preserved in storage for decades after the original wood rotted. Di Suvero's work, characterized by gravity-defying steel forms painted bright red or left to rust artfully, appears globally in sculpture parks, corporate plazas, and university campuses. Born in Shanghai and raised in California, the Italian-American abstractionist creates structures that thrust limb-like elements skyward with defiant optimism. Three additional di Suvero works are on view through September 12 in Renzo Piano's atrium at the Morgan Library and Museum, marking that institution's first exhibition of contemporary sculpture. The article draws a historical connection between di Suvero's work and the suppressed Constructivist movement in Russia, referencing Stalin's phrase 'engineer of the soul' that would have applied to artists like Tatlin. The Chelsea gallery space includes a hangar-like structure suitable for the large-scale reconstruction.