Word: smithing
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...even in that form it took a lot of effort. For the past two months, three to seven workmen have been saw ing, painting, sweating and swearing in the museum's basement and on the main floor. Slowly the massive open construction took on the shape dictated by Smith's original small-scale cardboard model; each part was hinged together to form a baroque network of flowing spaces, held together primarily by tension and hauled into place by hoists. Now installed, the full-scale model cost $6,000; a metal version would have gone as high...
...boldy taking their huge, industrially produced works to the public. It is a moment dizzying with promise and fraught with peril. For novelty quickly washes away, and bigness for its own »ake becomes merely ponderous. The reason why so much critical attention and acclaim is focused on Smith's work at the present is that, even in mock-up t has the quality of permanence. His .culptures assert their authority through heir scale as much as through their size, a unique wedding of robust geometry and personal vision...
...late U.S. Sculptor-Welder David Smith or to Britain's Richard Smith, whose shaped canvases won the grand prize at the current Sao Paulo Bienal. -Not all fabricators do such good work. A duplicate of Die was ordered from a Los Angeles firm for last spring's County Museum sculpture survey show, but its surface is badly scratched and, for lack of proper interior bracing, it has an oddly flimsy look...
...Million Styles. Smith like many contemporary artists shares the impatience to see the future, even in mockups, for he feels that the U.S. is on the verge of a major artistic breakthrough. So far, he points out, the forms that the U.S. has contributed to Western civilization have been largely architectural: skyscrapers, grain silos, factories, petroleum drums, bridges. But Egypt matched its pyramids and temples with obelisks and sphinxes, while Greece's Parthenon was glorified by the handiwork of Phidias. Michelangelo unified Florence's Piazza della Signoria with his 14-ft.-high David-which was positioned in front...
Obviously, something larger is needed to match the scale of today's American cities. Indoor sculptures the size of Smoke, Smith thinks, are only a beginning. Says he: "I'm interested in fresh air. You can't really characterize what we've done in the past the way you can recognize the style of ancient Egypt. Our style has no landmark. Until now, the art of our country has been a million styles...