Nasher Sculpture Center

Dynamic Projection at Thirty Degrees is related to Antoine Pevsner's Developable Surface series of freestanding sculptures, the first bronze Surface développable dating from as early as 1936, followed by Projection dans l'espace of 1938-39. These works, with their projections of twisting, ribbed surfaces, seem to have originated in drawings and painting of a few years earlier (Giedion-Welcker and Peissi, 1961, nos. 72, 73), in which networks of radiating lines trace complex movements in space. Similar genuses of movement are given solid form in the ensuing sculptures, in which linear radiation is preserved either by soldering rods or wires at regular intervals along a plane or, as in the original version of Dynamic Projection at Thirty Degrees, fusing these rods to create a curving planar surface. This was a painstaking technique invented by Pevsner, involving long working hours and extreme heat. The formal vocabulary is related to the striations that his brother Naum Gabo added to his sculptures about the same time, as well as to Gabo's slightly later strung sculptures.

The concept of the "developable surface," involving projecting and unfolding movement in space, derives from mathematical models providing physical embodiment of algebraic equations. Pevsner's actual compositions, however, were for the most part intuitive rather than mathematical. In this example, the theme involves a strong diagonal thrust at approximately 30º, with various countervailing movements around it. The original bronze version of the sculpture is now in the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris (gift of Mme Pevsner; included in Pevsner retrospective, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 1957, cat. no. 49). Two other bronze casts exist: at the Caracas University Center, in Venezuela, and the Baltimore Museum of Art (casts number one and two, respectively). It is known that the second cast was made by the Susse foundry, Paris, in 1960 (information provided by Brenda Richardson, Baltimore Museum of Art), so the third cast, also by Susse, must have been made between 1960 and the time of the addendum (date unknown) to Carola Giedion-Welcker's Pevsner monograph of 1961, in which it is listed.