contemporary

Modern and contemporary highlights from the Art Institute of Chicago

Lora Marx (American), Bust from the Tavern Club, Chicago, Illinois, c. 1937, plaster. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

foreground: Cindy Sherman (American), Untitled #92, 1981, Chromogenic print. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

background: John Currin (American), Stamford after Brunch, 2000, oil on canvas. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Leonora Carrington (English, active Mexico), The Chad (O las hystericas), 1962, oil on panel. Private collection, on view at the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Marcel Duchamp (American, born France), Hat Rack, 1964 (1916 original now lost), wood. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Pavel Tchelitchew (American), Untitled, 1948, pen and black ink with brush and gray wash on paper. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Constantin Brancusi (French, born Romania), left to right:

White Negress II, 1928; white marble, black marble, stone, and wood;

Leda, c. 1920, marble on concrete base;

Golden Bird, 1919/20 (base about 1922); bronze, stone, and wood.

Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Ellen Gallagher (American), Untitled, 1999; enamel, rubber, and paper on canvas. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Kurt Seligmann (American, born Switzerland), The Dance [detail], 1940, oil on glass. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Takashi Murakami (Japanese), Mr. Pointy, 2011, acrylic on canvas. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Katharina Fritsch (German), Woman with Dog, 2004; polyester, iron, wood, and paint. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Francis Bacon (English, born Ireland), Figure with Meat, 1954, oil on canvas. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Jeff Koons (American), Bourgeois Bust—Jeff and Ilona, 1991, marble. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres (American, born Cuba), “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991; candies individually wrapped in multicolor cellophane, endless supply. Promised gift, on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Ellsworth Kelly (American), Tableau Vert, 1952, oil on wood. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Andy Warhol (American), Big Electric Chair, 1967–68, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Marlene Dumas (South African), Albino, 1986, oil on canvas. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Kelly Church (Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Pottawatomi, Ottawa, and American), Sustaining Traditions—Digital Teachings, 2018; black ash, sweetgrass, copper; medicine pouch; glass vial containing emerald ash borer; USB flash drive. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Robert Rauschenberg (American), Untitled, c. 1955, combine painting (oil, house paint, paper, fabric, and printed reproductions, with sock and parachute on canvas). Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

foreground: Jean (Hans) Arp (French, born Alsace), Growth, 1938/60, white marble. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

background: Joan Miró (Spanish), The Policeman, 1925, oil on canvas. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Lora Marx (American), Bust from the Tavern Club, Chicago, Illinois, c. 1937, plaster. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Pomodoro's Disk in the Form of a Desert Rose

Arnaldo Pomodoro, Disk in the Form of a Desert Rose, 1993–94, cast 1999–2000, bronze, 118 x 118 x 39 in. Installed at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

The Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro (b. 1926) came into adulthood in Italy during the second World War and, until 1957, spent the post-war years working as a civil engineer, consulting on the restoration of public buildings in Pesaro. However, he also followed his artistic interests during this time, learning to cast as a goldsmith, studying theater design, and meeting other Italian artists and architects, including Lucio Fontana and Enrico Baj.

Although he was already producing artwork by the mid-fifties, with the first exhibit of his sculpture occurring in 1955, his travels to New York and around Europe from 1956 to the early 1960s were crucial to the development of his mature style. His travels exposed him to the works of Constantin Brâncuși and allowed him to meet the painter Georges Mathieu and the sculptors Alberto Giacometti, Louise Nevelson, and David Smith. Brâncuși’s pristine, mirror-like surfaces and nearly geometric shapes were likely particularly important reference points for Pomodoro, as his own mature work appears to both play with and push against the perfect wholeness of Brâncuși’s casts. Indeed, many of Pomodoro’s sculptures, including those in his famous Sphere within Sphere series, take the form of large-scale geometric shapes with Brâncuși-like surfaces seemingly broken to reveal complex, possibly mechanical, internal structures. Or, as stated on Pomodoro’s website, the “solid geometric” forms “are lacerated, corroded, excavated in their depths, with the intention of destroying their perfection and discovering the mystery closed within.”

Disk in the Form of a Desert Rose (1993–94), a cast of which is installed at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan and pictured here, is a relatively late work by Pomodoro. The sculpture consists of a giant, upright disk, its “skin” torn and its structure ripped apart by a mass of curving ridges, sharp-edged blocks, and clusters of spheres that appear to have grown, crystal-like and parasitic, from inside. Rather than the smooth shininess or dramatically contrasting finishes that typified his earlier sculptures, Pomodoro has employed a worn, mottled surface that serves to further the impression the disk has been damaged, not by external attacks, but by the unimpeded growth of its own internal structures—by the force of the new replacing the old.

Arnaldo Pomodoro, Disk in the Form of a Desert Rose, 1993–94, cast 1999–2000, bronze, 118 x 118 x 39 in. Installed at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Arnaldo Pomodoro, Disk in the Form of a Desert Rose, 1993–94, cast 1999–2000, bronze, 118 x 118 x 39 in. Installed at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Arnaldo Pomodoro, Disk in the Form of a Desert Rose, 1993–94, cast 1999–2000, bronze, 118 x 118 x 39 in. Installed at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.