Untitled (Swing), 2008-2022
Mark di Suvero
Untitled (Swing), 2008-2022
stainless steel, aluminum, rubber, rope
16 x 8 x 15 ft (487.7 x 243.8 x 457.2 cm)
"I found the rules of the pendulum, and the rules of equilibrium, by making toys for children. […] I was becoming very socially conscious. The kids from the neighborhood who lived in the projects came, and I started making toys. Often when we do something nice for someone, we receive without realizing it.
The kids taught me what works and what doesn't."
- Mark di Suvero
Hanging Play Sculpture, 1969 (destroyed)
Steel, rope, and painted rubber
Installed in People’s Park, Chicago, 1969
Many of Mark di Suvero’s monumental sculptures possess dynamic, moving elements, and were made to be touched, climbed up, slid down, swung on, or otherwise interacted with. This is no more evident than in the Swing sculptures that have been enjoyed by audiences of all ages from the early 1960s to the present day. By inviting people to play with his work, di Suvero transgresses the border between viewer and object and informs bodily as well as visual engagement.
Encouraging play was symptomatic of a mode of thinking that was on the rise in urban planning in the 1960s and 1970s that considered recreation as a means to alleviate social ills. In 1969, di Suvero contributed play sculptures to the People’s Park in Chicago, founded by the Puerto Rican anti-gentrification group the Young Lords Organization (YLO). People’s Park was a community-built and managed public space that disregarded official claims to land ownership.
Thomas Hoving seated on Hanging Bench, 1966
Steel, rubber, and rope
48 × 60 × 48 in.
Courtesy of the artist and Spacetime C.C.
Image courtesy of American Craft Council Library and Archives
Photo: Edward Ozern
Collectors quickly become enamored of the sculptural swings, too, and Mickey Ruskin arranged the installation of a di Suvero swing at Max’s Kansas City restaurant in exchange for free meals for the artist. But rather than entertaining his friends, di Suvero brought groups of kids from the public housing projects in his neighborhood to the restaurant and encouraged them to eat lavishly and then order more food to go.
Untitled (Swing), 2008-2022, exemplifies di Suvero’s improvisatory process and ingenuity with salvaged materials as well as the community-oriented objective of his extraordinary play sculptures.
Untitled (Swing), 2008-22
Aluminum, rubber, rope, and stainless steel hardware
Installation view from Mark di Suvero: Steel Like Paper, The Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas, January 28, 2023 – August 27, 2023
Mark di Suvero
Untitled (Swing), 2008-2022
stainless steel, aluminum, rubber, rope
16 x 8 x 15 ft (487.7 x 243.8 x 457.2 cm)
Born in China to Italian parents, Mark di Suvero (b. 1933, Shanghai) immigrated to the U.S. as a child aged eight. An internationally renowned artist and pioneer in the use of steel, di Suvero has created vibrant and dynamic works of sculpture and painting throughout his sixty-year career, fusing vitality and movement with complex construction. His work has been shown consistently in galleries and museums worldwide including exhibitions of outdoor sculpture in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and a number of cities in the United States. In 2023, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas opened a major exhibition of di Suvero’s work. Public citywide shows have taken place in Paris, France; Venice, Italy; and New York City. Permanent installations of di Suvero’s sculpture are in Baltimore, Dallas, Grand Rapids, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, St. Louis, San Francisco, South Bend, and Toledo. In New York, di Suvero’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Storm King Art Center (Mountainville, NY). Di Suvero founded Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, New York, in 1985. It became a public city park in 1998.