VOLTRI VII

B. Human beings are so unhappy  that tey would be bored even if they have no reason for boredom, simple because of their nature. They are so vain that with thousands of legitimate reasons for boredom the slightest thing like tapping a billiard ball with a cue is enough to distract them.

Blaise Pascal
Pensees and Other Writings

     Photography :SMO©2008

VOLTRI -VII

David Smith

For a while I thought I lost these pictures,  it must  be few years past since   I took 

them. I remember  it was  summer of 2008.   Couple friends from Argentina were 

in town for a short stay. One day before their  departure we  decided to take a day 

trip to Washington DC, the plan was to see the National Galery and come back at 

same day. After few hours drive from New York, we  arrived DC early afternoon. 

I park the car as close as I can get to  East Galery, I didn't  want to waste any time,

the outside the hot air mixed with high  humidity made our short  walking difficult.

Atrium of the East Galery felt cool and refreshing. Angular stone walls of Atrium

covered with playfull reflections of light coming through skylight  above. Quickly 

we head up to second floor. There I saw the Voltri first time. It had a true presence 

It was a sizeable sculpture,   about 10  feet  long and may be seven feet high, built 

from Iron, yet it seemed weightless. Later, I found out this was one of the twenty-

seven  sculpture David Smith  produced   amazingly short  period of time; during 

the thirty day stay in Spoleto, Italy in 1962.

Below chronological information provided by David Smith Estate

1962-63

Smith is invited by the Italian government to make two sculptures for exhibition in Spoleto during the Fourth Festival of Two Worlds in June 1962. He is offered as his studio a decommissioned Italsider steel factory in Voltri outside Spoleto and provided with a team of steel workers as his assistants. With these resources, Smith makes twenty-seven sculptures in thirty days, using the tools, machines, objects, and materials he found in the Italsider factory. Before returning to Bolton Landing, Smith arranges to have material from the factory shipped to New York. Upon his return, he begins his Voltri-Bolton series (twenty-five sculptures, 1962 to 1963).