In an upcoming exhibit from Maison Gerard, sculptural work from Marino di Teana will be on display in the gardens of the historic Grosvenor Atterbury Mansion in Southampton, New York, which is owned by 1stdibs and Art Design Carta founder Michael Bruno. The pieces, made of stainless and Corten steel, can be seen by appointment only, from July 22 to August 26.
The sculptor, says the gallery, “is known for his long, storied career, his monumental public commissions, and as one of the forerunners of architectural sculpture. A trained engineer and architect, di Teana envisioned sculpture and architecture as one. He employed the use of industrial materials like steel, viewed his sculptures as complete structures (sound in scale and structural balance), and pioneered a theory of form, called ‘tri-unity,’ wherein a sculptor’s arrangement of negative space played as important a role as his arrangement of physical mass.”
Di Teana immigrated from Italy to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he worked as a mason to pay for architecture classes, and then to Paris, where he was homeless, in order to fund his study of sculpture. (During that time, he slept in public gardens.) His popularity began to grow when, in 1962, one of his large-scale sculptures won first prize in a competition judged by Ossip Zadkine, Serge Poliakoff and Alberto Giacometti.
He went on to produce works for public spaces throughout Europe. Di Teana received retrospectives at the Saarland Museum in Saarbrücken, Germany, and at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, as well as representing Argentina at the Venice Biennale and France at the International Symposium of Arts and Sciences in Seoul. And he was appointed a member of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture of Argentina, among other honors.
This exhibit is the first of its kind stateside, particularly because of the scale of the objects being shown.
