PAINTED STEEL
576 x 306 x 306 INCHES
COURTESY OF THE NANCY A. NASHER AND DAVID J. HAEMISEGGER COLLECTION
Mark di Suvero's monumentally impressive, 48-foot-tall, 12-ton Ad Astra, 2005, fills the two-story NorthCourt at NorthPark Center where it can be viewed from two levels. This is the only indoor, public display of the artist's work in the world. First installed in 2005 at Storm King in upstate New York, a New York Times review stated that, “John Russell... described a typical di Suvero as "not so much built as added to." He continued, "It would be powerful, but benign, and it would exert a curious lopsided magic." This certainly characterized "Ad Astra" as it stood whole and erect at last, scrawled against the sky, reaching, as its title suggests, for the stars.”
Ad Astra’s magic is typical of di Suvero’s use of steel as a sculptural material; his monumental sculptures look effortlessly formed, but are painstakingly constructed from industrial I-beams that are welded and bolted together. As aforementioned, Ad Astra is a Latin phrase meaning “to the stars.” Di Suvero often refers to his monumental sculptures as being of “architectural scale,” as they are comparable to some buildings themselves. This unique interior installation of such a sizable sculpture however, offers an opportunity for the work to be in conversation with the stunning interior architecture of NorthPark and for the viewer to get a rare, up close and personal vantage point from nearly every angle.
