美国国家公共电台 NPR Sculptor Mark Di Suvero Creates Joy Out Of Steel

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Interlocking steel beams, sometimes painted vivid red or orange, attached at sharp angles, zigzagging¹ up to a hundred feet in the air - this is the work of Mark di Suvero, who went from studying philosophy to working construction to becoming one of the world's most acclaimed² sculptors⁴. He recently oversaw⁵ the installation of a massive piece at the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, N.Y. Reporter Karen Michel watched it go up and has this story about the 86-year-old and his art.

KAREN MICHEL, BYLINE⁶: Sculptor³ Mark di Suvero first started using a crane to make his humongous wood beam and steel sculptures in the mid-1960s. He says he uses a crane the way a painter uses a brush. It's a tool for doing the work, just bigger and way scarier.

MARK DI SUVERO: The crane is a very delicate instrument that's a question of life and death. They may talk about painters risking their life with a painting, but it's very different when you're working with 10 tons of steel and there are people working with you. The question of life and death is right there.

MICHEL: Di Suvero speaks from experience. In 1960, he almost died from a construction site accident.

DI SUVERO: A terrible accident when I was working for $2 an hour as a cabinetmaker's helper. And I learned that I could no longer pick up the wooden beams that I used to pick up.

MICHEL: That's an understatement. He couldn't walk. He was already affiliated⁷ with a gallery in New York, and he was determined⁸ to become mobile again and to continue sculpting⁹. Now he uses crutches¹⁰ or a wheelchair. A leg was recently amputated. He'd burned it welding. But when the artist is up in a crane, he can move and work. So the way some people wax rhapsodic about their first car, Mark di Suvero reminisces fondly about his first crane.

DI SUVERO: I discovered the crane as a tool working in a lot that was a garbage lot. And I traded welding time for crane operation. Then I ended up in Jersey¹¹ buying a dead crane. And I am an operating engineer. I am a member of the union, and it changes everything.

(SOUNDBITE OF CRANE BACKING UP)

MICHEL: Di Suvero was up in a cherry picker, overseeing the installation of a work that had been moved from France to the Storm King Art Center in New York's Hudson Valley. At close to a hundred feet tall, the H-beam and stainless-steel sculpture called "E=MC2" is di Suvero's largest work.

DI SUVERO: The speed of light squared changing the relationship of what a material is to its energy, translated into energy, is incredible. It is one of the great monuments that a human mind has devised in the last century.

MICHEL: Energy is central to di Suvero's work, too. Some of his sculptures have moving parts that people literally¹² can play with.

Di Suvero's had 50 works shown at Storm King, and Mike Seaman¹³ has overseen¹⁴ the installation of almost all of them. It's a complex job, a lot like threading a needle, but with tons of interlocking steel plates and H-beams, especially for the massive "E=MC2."

MIKE SEAMAN: It's 69,000 pounds, give or take a little bit. We didn't add the bolts into the weight - really magnificent piece.

MICHEL: You can see nine of the sculptor's other works nearby, but they're smaller - say, 65 feet - already huge, but not to di Suvero.

DI SUVERO: None of my pieces are large. All of my pieces are human scale. Next to a mountain, next to an ocean, I am a little bit bigger than a grain of sand.

And this is the studio. This is where the steel gets bent¹⁵, where the pieces get welded and...

MICHEL: And where in Long Island City, the octogenarian artist still does much of the bending, welding and cutting himself. For him, the work - the steel - has kept its fascination¹⁶.

DI SUVERO: (Laughter) Steel is so beautiful. It bends. It comes back. It's merciless. It's in our blood. The center of the blood corpuscle has to do with iron. So I mean, if it's there in the blood, it's part of us.

MICHEL: And for di Suvero, that's key to his goal of giving viewers joy when they see his work. One of his pieces is titled "Are Years What?," after Marianne Moore's poem "What Are Years."

Di Suvero reads the last lines.

DI SUVERO: (Reading) So he who strongly feels, behaves. The very bird, grown taller as he sings, steels his form straight up. Though he is captive, his mighty¹⁷ singing says, satisfaction is a lowly thing. How pure a thing is joy. This is mortality. This is eternity¹⁸.

MICHEL: For NPR News, I'm Karen Michel.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE ALBUM LEAF'S "STRETCHED HOME")

1 zigzagging   

v.弯弯曲曲地走路，曲折地前进( zigzag的现在分词 )；盘陀

参考例句：

• She walked along, zigzagging with her head back. 她回头看着，弯弯扭扭地向前走去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We followed the path zigzagging up the steep slope. 我们沿着小径曲曲折折地爬上陡坡。 来自互联网

2 acclaimed   

adj.受人欢迎的

参考例句：

• They acclaimed him as the best writer of the year. 他们称赞他为当年的最佳作者。
• Confuscius is acclaimed as a great thinker. 孔子被赞誉为伟大的思想家。

3 sculptor   

n.雕刻家，雕刻家

参考例句：

• A sculptor forms her material.雕塑家把材料塑造成雕塑品。
• The sculptor rounded the clay into a sphere.那位雕塑家把黏土做成了一个球状。

4 sculptors   

雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座

参考例句：

• He is one of Britain's best-known sculptors. 他是英国最有名的雕塑家之一。
• Painters and sculptors are indexed separately. 画家和雕刻家被分开，分别做了索引。

5 oversaw   

v.监督，监视( oversee的过去式 )

参考例句：

• He will go down as the president who oversaw two historic transitions. 他将作为见证了巴西两次历史性转变的总统，安然引退。 来自互联网
• Dixon oversaw the project as creative director of Design Research Studio. 狄克逊监督项目的创意总监设计研究工作室。 来自互联网

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 affiliated   

adj. 附属的, 有关连的

参考例句：

• The hospital is affiliated with the local university. 这家医院附属于当地大学。
• All affiliated members can vote. 所有隶属成员都有投票权。

8 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

9 sculpting   

雕刻( sculpt的现在分词 )； 雕塑； 做（头发）； 梳（发式）

参考例句：

• The quality of the result is determined by a Craft( sculpting) check. 由手艺（刻）定决定结果质量如何。
• Another difficulty in the process of ice sculpting is time control. 冰雕过程中的另一项困难是时间的掌控。

10 crutches   

n.拐杖, 支柱 v.支撑

参考例句：

• After the accident I spent six months on crutches . 事故后我用了六个月的腋杖。
• When he broke his leg he had to walk on crutches. 他腿摔断了以后，不得不靠拐杖走路。

11 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

12 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

13 seaman   

n.海员，水手，水兵

参考例句：

• That young man is a experienced seaman.那个年轻人是一个经验丰富的水手。
• The Greek seaman went to the hospital five times.这位希腊海员到该医院去过五次。

14 overseen   

v.监督，监视( oversee的过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was overseen stealing the letters. 他被人撞见在偷信件。 来自辞典例句
• It will be overseen by ThomasLi, director of IBM China Research Laboratory. 该实验室由IBM中国研究院院长李实恭(ThomasLi)引导。 来自互联网

15 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

16 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

17 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

18 eternity   

n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷

参考例句：

• The dull play seemed to last an eternity.这场乏味的剧似乎演个没完没了。
• Finally,Ying Tai and Shan Bo could be together for all of eternity.英台和山伯终能双宿双飞，永世相随。