Rumi

Artist Mark di Suvero (American, born China, 1933)

Date1991

MediumSteel with paint

DimensionsOverall: 288 × 122 1/16 × 168 1/16 inches (731.52 × 310.04 × 426.88 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Hall Family Foundation

Object numberF99-33/5

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park

Collections

Contemporary Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Grass Roots Art Energy, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York, April 28, 1991-April 26, 1992, no cat.

Doris Friedman Plaza, Central Park, New York, 1991.

Mark di Suvero a Venezia, Venice Bienale, June 11-October 15, 1995, unnumbered.

Gallery Label

Rumi, with its steel limbs reaching out in all directions, looks like a whirling dancer. It is named for the Persian poet from the 1200s who inspired Sufism, a branch of Islam. For Rumi, meditative dance opened a connection to the divine. The sculpture also celebrates the industrial orange I-beams of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, the first structure artist Mark di Suvero remembers seeing when he immigrated to the United States. Di Suvero says, "The effort in unifying the cultures of the world is one of the major forces of the 21st-century."

Provenance

With the Oil & Steel Gallery, Long Island City, New York, by 1995;

Purchased from the Oil & Steel Gallery, Long Island City, New York by the Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 1995;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1999.

Published References

Mark di Suvero, Open Secret: Sculpture 1990-92 (New York: Rizzoli, 1992), 23, (repro.), 24-25, (repro.).

Mark di Suvero: La Beinnale di Venezia, XLVI International Art Exhibition (New York: Gagosian Gallery, 1995), unnumbered.

Giovanni Carandente, Mark di Suvero a Venezia (Milan: Edizioni Charta, 1995), 40, 41 (repro.).

Marcia E. Vetrocq, “The Birthday Biennale: Coming Home to Europe,” Art in America (September 1995): 72, (repro.).

Alice Thorson, “Nelson Adds 12 Outdoor Sculptures,” The Kansas City Star (March 14, 1996): A1 (repro.).

“On Top of It”, The Kansas City Star Metropolitan (March 20, 1996): C1 (repro.).

Vern Barnet, “Rumi: Poet, mystic, dervish,” The Kansas City Star (May 29, 1996): F3.

Deborah Emont Scott, “A Modern Sculpture Initiative: Recent Acquisitions at The Nelson-Atkins Museum,” Apollo (November 1996): 30 (repro.).

Alice Thorson, “Moving Sculptures,” The Kansas City Star (August 8, 1999): J1.

“Missouri Museum Received Major Gift,” Southwest Art (June 2000): (repro.).

Alice Thorson, “Good Fences Hide Good Sculpture”, The Kansas City Star (October 2, 2005): H3 (repro.).

Richard Bellamy Mark Di Suvero (Stormking Art Center Mountainville, NY, 2006), unnumbered (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (Kansas City: The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 238, (repro.).

Mark di Suvero Dreambook (University of California Press, Berkley, CA, 2008), 86 (repro.), 87.

Mark di Suvero Sculpture and Drawings, exh. cat. (Tasende Gallery, 2011), 40 (repro.).

Mark di Suvero (Stormking Art Center, Mountainville, NY, 2015), 136 (repro.), 137.

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