Mark di Suvero American, b. 1933

Featuring paintings, works on paper, sculpture, film, and archival ephemera from the SFMOMA Library, and SFAI archive, this ambitious exhibition showcases museum-quality works by contemporary and historical artists, illustrating Berggruen...

Exhibiting Artists:

Tauba Auerbach | John Baldessari | Larry Bell | Helen Berggruen | Sarah Blaustein | Katherine Boxall | Val Britton | Christopher Brown | Andy Burgess | Dean Byington | Bruce Cohen | Adriane Colburn | Travis Collinson | Mark di Suvero | June Edmonds | Charles Gaines | Daniel Gibson | Isca Greenfield-Sanders | Michael Gregory | Stephen Hannock | Sarah Hotchkiss | Seth Kaufman | Clare Kirkconnell | Matt Kleberg | Anna Kunz | Charles Lee | Barry McGee | Klea McKenna | Tom McKinley | Vanessa Marsh | Richard Misrach | Nicole Mueller | Ed Ruscha | Richard Serra | Jillian Shea | Stephanie H. Shih | Kyle Warren Smith | Joni Sternbach | Marie Thibeault | Dani Tull | Darren Waterston | Griff Williams | Jonas Wood | Christopher Woodcock

I am honored to present this exhibition, Her Voice, in honor of my late wife, Gretchen Berggruen. Co-owner of Berggruen Gallery, Gretchen was the heart and soul of the gallery. This group show features more than thirty artists, all of whom Gretchen championed, worked closely alongside, and deeply admired. This exhibition reflects Gretchen’s vision and her great passion in life. Those who had the pleasure to have known her know the deep level of care and attention with which she always acted. Her expertise, drive, kindness, patience, and perseverance drove the gallery to be what it is today. Gretchen was my partner and our leader, and I am proud to present Her Voice, celebrating her life and all that she built. – John Berggruen

Featuring artworks by the following artists:

Diana Al-Hadid | John Alexander | Jennifer Bartlett | Cecily Brown | Christopher Brown | Squeak Carnwath | Bruce Cohen | Roseline Delisle | Mark di Suvero | Richard Diebenkorn | Austin Eddy | Helen Frankenthaler | Jane Hammond | Stephen Hannock | Shara Hughes | William Kentridge | Clare Kirkconnell | Julian Lethbridge | Alicia McCarthy | Tom McKinley | Julie Mehretu | Elizabeth Murray | Tom Otterness | Martin Puryear | Linda Ridgway | Joel Shapiro | Judith Shea | Kiki Smith | Mark Tansey | Wayne Thiebaud | Fiona Waterstreet

Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present OBJECTively Speaking: Contemporary Sculpture, a powerful survey of forms that transcend notions of material, line, volume, and balance. This exhibition will be on view July 27 - October 9, 2020. You can view the exhibition in person by scheduling an appointment here. For a virtually interactive exhibition experience, we invite you to visit our online viewing room here.

We are also excited to announce the introduction of Berggruen Gallery 3D viewing experiences, a new feature that we are inaugurating with our current OBJECTively Speaking: Contemporary Sculpture exhibition.

OBJECTively Speaking brings together distinct processes from a dynamic range of artists while simultaneously meditating on the Minimalist art movement. The artists present in this showing have all worked to both continue and disrupt notions of sculpture as we understand it, even having influenced one another’s work in real-time. While Joel Shapiro’s geometric abstractions speak to Donald Judd’s unadorned objects, Anish Kapoor’s exploration of reflectivity acknowledges Joseph Kosuth’s unique use of light and medium 45 years prior. Examining the influence of Minimalist, Installation, Abstract, and Conceptual sculpture in the 20th and 21st centuries, OBJECTively Speaking presents a complex yet complimentary selection of works by:

Mark di Suvero

Antony Gormley

Mona Hatoum

Donald Judd

Anish Kapoor

Joseph Kosuth

Ritsue Mishima

Iran Do Espirito Santo

Joel Shapiro

Frank Stella

OBJECTively Speaking: Contemporary Sculpture, July 27 - October 9, 2020. On view by appointment only at 10 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. To schedule an appointment, please click here. Images and preview are available upon request. For all inquiries please contact the gallery by phone (415) 781-4629 or by email info@berggruen.com.

Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present Major Contemporary Works, an exhibition of paintings, drawings, and sculptures by important contemporary artists. This show will be on view May 16 - July 6, 2019.

Tauba Auerbach | Cecily Brown | Christo | Tony Cragg | Sarah Crowner | John Currin | Mark di Suvero
Spencer Finch | Günther Förg | Danny Fox | Michelle Grabner | Shara Hughes | William Kentridge
Alicia McCarthy | Beatriz Milhazes | Sarah Morris | Odili Donald Odita | Tom Otterness
Martin Puryear | Joel Shapiro | Jenny Sharaf | Kiki Smith | Lucy Williams


Major Contemporary Works, May 16 - July 6, 2019. On view at 10 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. Images and preview are available upon request. For all inquiries, please contact the gallery by phone (415) 781-4629 or by email info@berggruen.com.

John Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by American sculptor, Mark di Suvero. Mark di Suvero: Selected Small Works marks the artist’s fifth solo exhibition at the gallery and will be on view May 9 through July 27, 2013. John Berggruen Gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Thursday, May 9th from 5:30 – 7:30 pm.

Mark di Suvero: Selected Small Works runs concurrently with Mark di Suvero at Crissy Field, organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in partnership with the National Park Service (NPS) and Golden Gate National Parks Conservanc. This major outdoor exhibition of Mark di Suvero's works near the Golden Gate Bridge includes eight large-scale steel sculptures installed at historic Crissy Field, a former airfield and military base that is now one of the most-visited national park sites within the Golden Gate National Parks. Curated by SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra, Mark di Suvero at Crissy Field surveys five decades of the artist's work including a recent sculpture that has never before been on public view. The temporary exhibition will be the largest display of di Suvero's work ever shown on the West Coast, and free for all visitors, extending the programs celebrating the Golden Gate Bridge's 75th anniversary.

Often regarded as one of the most important living American sculptors, Mark di Suvero began his steady rise to prominence in the 1960s with exhibitions at the March Gallery, NY (1958), Green Gallery, NY (1960), and his ground breaking solo exhibition at the Jardin de Tuileries, Paris (1975), where, as the first living artist bestowed with this honor, he exhibited the monumental, industrially informed works that have become synonymous with his name. That same year, di Suvero was given his first one-person American museum exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which included many smaller works that were similar in scale to the sculpture highlighted in this current exhibition. Today, di Suvero is best known for his large outdoor sculpture – works such as Pax Jerusalem (1999) at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, and Mother Peace (1969 – 70), which is one of the works included in Mark di Suvero at Crissy Field, that demonstrate his long lasting commitment to public art. These large works require audience participation, begging for the type of meditative circumambulation that was popularized early on by the Greco-Romans and reemphasized by Michelangelo and his followers in the 1500s. However, this need for viewer interaction is a major tendency in di Suvero’s small scale sculpture as well, and is evidenced at John Berggruen Gallery in works such Sandwich 1 (2007) and The Hair from Vincent’s Beard (2012). Rather than function as models, maquettes or studies for his larger pieces, di Suvero’s smaller sculptures are intended to be viewed as fully realized works of art. They have been an integral component of di Suvero’s oeuvre throughout his career and offer entrée into his world in a very intimate way.

Mark di Suvero is nothing if not a man of many interests. Wide ranging preoccupations with poetry, music, mathematics, engineering, politics and philosophy make their way into the conception, construction, and naming of his work, influencing his artistic perspective and reflecting deeply rooted and universal interests and emotions, as well as refining and civilizing what many would consider the utilitarian medium of steel. As Jan Garden Castro writes in the 2005 interview for Sculpture Magazine, “His steel geometries connect earth and sky, space and time. Primordial elements, physics, music, poetry, and philosophical influences also find their way into the mix. di Suvero’s wizardry melds the monumental and the intimate, humanizing steel as though it were another form of writing by hand.”[1]

Born in Shanghai in 1933 to Italian parents, di Suvero’s family moved to San Francisco when was he was seven years old. di Suvero studied philosophy and art at the University of California, Santa Barbara, transferring to UC Berkeley in 1955, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy before moving to New York in 1957. In 1960, while preparing for an exhibition at Green Gallery, di Suvero suffered a job-related accident, resulting in paraplegia, which left him in a wheel-chair for a year. The accident prompted di Suvero to turn to steel as an artistic medium because of his ability to weld it while still confined to his wheelchair. In 1972, di Suvero emigrated to Europe in opposition to America’s war efforts in Vietnam. He was met there with much success, staging exhibitions at the Stedelijk Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands (1972), Chalon-sur-Saône, France (1972-1974), Le Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, France (1975), as well as the 1975 Venice Biennale, in which he also participated in 1995. In 1976, he founded the Athena Foundation in New York and in 1985 the Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City. di Suvero had his first major exhibition at the Storm King Art Center in 1985, and again in 2005. He was the recipient of the Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities in 2005 and has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture from the International Sculpture Center. Mark di Suvero’s work can be found in many public collections worldwide, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He currently lives and works in New York and maintains studios in France and California.