Timber Tongs
Artist:
Mark di Suvero
(American, born China, 1933)
Place made:United States, North and Central America
Date: 1977
Medium: Welded steel
Dimensions:
h. 63 in. (160 cm); w. 42 in. (106.7 cm); d. 46 in. (116.8 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Brown Foundation and the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation
Object number: 78.796
Copyright: © Mark di Suvero / Spacetime C.C.
Label Text
To construct this sculpture, Mark di Suvero combined a found object—a pair of tongs once used for moving logs—and a metal planar structure. Di Suvero is a pioneer in the use of steel as sculptural material and is particularly known for his brightly painted (often in red) large-scale artworks. Influenced by the twentieth-century psychologist Carl Jung, di Suvero believes there are basic dualities observable throughout nature; Timber Tongs refers to these dualities through a gentle balancing of opposites. Resting in a state of equilibrium on the base of the sculpture, which is a stable, geometric solid mass, are the tongs, which are kinetic (they can tilt or rotate), are curved, and incorporate open space.
(Label text, 2017)
(Label text, 2017)
On view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
