Buckminster Fuller - Evening & Day Editions New York Tuesday, October 28, 2014 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Catalogue Essay

    Buckminster Fuller's geometry shows that any sphere tangentially and symmetrically surrounded by spheres of the same radius will always produce an array of twelve balls around one ball. This phenomenon defines what he calls the Vector Equilibrium.

    The transparent spheres of this sculpture give it an ethereal quality reminiscent of a child's bubble blowing while lucidly presenting the concept. Faintly visible equators illustrate the tangency of adjacent balls and the red nuclear sphere clarifies the radial symmetry of the structure. Twenty-four rods delineate the edges of the polyhedron uniquely determined by the nuclear packing of spheres. Its shape is unaffected by additional layers of balls. Two layers surround the nucleus which classifies this structure as "two-frequency," a term that refers to the subdivisions along each edge.

79

Closest Packing of Spheres

1980
Chrome plated steel rods, molded thermoplastic connectors, smoked grey acrylic spheres around red acrylic sphere multiple,
41 x 48 x 48 in. (104.1 x 121.9 x 121.9 cm)
incised with signature and numbered 3/10 on a plaque adhered to a steel rod (only 5 were completed), published by Carl Solway Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio

Estimate
$25,000 - 35,000 

Contact Specialist
Kelly Troester
Director Modern Editions

Cary Leibowitz
Director Contemporary Editions

General Enquiries
+1 212 940 1220

Evening & Day Editions

New York Auction 28 October 2014 11am & 5:30pm