By: Ennis Johnson, Maria Hescheles, and Carleigh Smith

Mindseye- Mark di Suvero (1978)

Background:

Italian and abstract expressionist artist Mark di Suvero was born in Shanghai, China, in 1933. He and his family immigrated to the United States to avoid tension brought on by World War 2 in 1941; they settled in San Francisco, where Suvero eventually attended college. He graduated from Cal Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and philosophy—once finished there, he began studying sculpting at UC Santa Barbara. Having solidified his technique and formed his own intentions as an artist, Suvero moved to New York City to present his work in exhibits and galleries in the later half of the 1950’s, supporting himself financially with a part-time work in construction. He often used the scrap metal from job sites to create his sculptures. After a serious injury on the job, Suvero devoted all his time to art. He sculpted and presented his art in Germany and England in protest of the Vietnam war—Mindseye, along with a myriad of other pieces, were heavily influenced and inspired by his time overseas. Suvero’s use of moving parts, massive beams, and various pieces of scrap metal created an entirely different approach to sculpting. Being an innovator in this era, he has been hosted in over one hundred museums and has received countless awards and medals for his work. Mark di Suvero’s sculpture Mindseye was gifted to Western Washington University in 2005 by its former owners Virginia and Bagley Wright. Di Suvero’s landmark For Handel was that sculpture.  The 53-inch-high Mindseye was originally slated to be placed in the Performing Arts Center (PAC) lobby, far from it’s current location, near the WWU Library’s Circulation Desk.  Mindseye is constructed entirely of steel, typical for di Suvero’s work.  It is unpainted, and has a rough appearance, especially where beams of steel are fused together.This level of sculptural detail, especially on a small scale, is unique in di Suvero’s body of work.  The majority of his three-dimensional pieces are large, site-specific works like For Handel that are intended to be viewed from far as well as near, meanwhile Mindseye requires the viewer to be closeby to be fully appreciated.

Vision:

To us, Mindseye embodies the idea that behind every simple structure is something much more complex—under every surface is a depth of movement and patterns, behind every action a motivation, beneath every idea a thought. Most significantly, behind every eye is a mind that takes in information, observes it, tangles and morphs it, makes sense of it, and dismantles it. Mindseye reminds us that on the outside, each one of us here at Western (and in the world beyond) is just a face—but behind every eye is a mind that has the ability to move, create, and think in incredible ways. One can watch the sculpture slowly turn and find that every moment holds a new perspective of the knot of shapes; our inner complexities work the same way when we take in new information. We can consider it in all its different shapes, learning to find more than one perspective or point of view. On a much larger scale, Mindseye not only depicts how a single mind might process and create, but also how a whole group of people might work together to understand life from all different standpoints. Our inner complexities differ from one person to the next, allowing us to have diversity in thought and ideas.

We are all complex in our own ways, able to learn and form new ideas and images from everything that we see, hear, feel, and touch. Mindseye is a wonderful reminder that we are so much more than what we are on the outside, and are capable of incredible work with the power of our minds.