American Art Collaborative

Mark di Suvero became a trained crane operator in 1966, several years after an elevator accident left him temporarily unable to sculpt with his hands. He quickly came to think of the crane as an extension of his body that allowed him to manipulate enormous pieces of steel and iron. Soon he began to create small sculptures with dangling sculptural elements that mimic a crane’s form and function. For example, di Suvero balanced the U-shaped piece in this work as if it were a load hanging from the boom of a crane. Untitled is similar to his large-scale artworks in which he suspended elements from beams so that they would “interact with the wind and other forces.” (Mark di Suvero, quoted in Ratcliff, “Artist’s Dialogue,” Architecture Digest, December 1983