On the Met's roof, a wistful fantasy we've been waiting for
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, November 26, 2024


On the Met's roof, a wistful fantasy we've been waiting for
“As Long as the Sun Lasts,” Alex Da Corte’s 26-foot-tall installation for the Cantor Roof Garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, April 13, 2021. The installation is a winsome crowd-pleaser that turns gentle circles without ever getting anywhere. Caroline Tompkins/The New York Times.

by Will Heinrich



NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The other day I saw a giant bird perching on a sliver of crescent moon. It was clutching a comically short ladder, and the whole scene — an installation by conceptual artist and designer of immersive environments Alex Da Corte — was on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum, tucked into a corner of one of New York City’s most spectacular patios.

The piece instantly brought me back to my favorite Italo Calvino short story, “The Distance of the Moon,” about the good old days when Earth and its moon were almost close enough to kiss. Rowing out to the point of closest approach, the narrator and his friends would erect a ladder and leap across to the lunar surface, where they frolicked and gathered cheese.

For his 2021 Roof Garden Commission, which opens Friday, Da Corte taps into a similar vein of straight-faced irony. The bird in “As Long as the Sun Lasts” — its title is borrowed from another Calvino story — is a full-size, custom-made, blue but otherwise unmistakable Big Bird, the beloved Sesame Street denizen. Gazing wistfully over the oligarch aeries south of Central Park, it looks torn, unsure whether to climb back down to earth or fly away forever.

Fabricated from stainless steel and covered with 7,000 hand-placed aluminum feathers, the Bird swings gently from one end of a long pole fixed 20-odd feet off the floor. (Its ladder is definitely too short.) Attached to the pole’s other end are five brightly colored metal discs, a nod to Alexander Calder’s floating mobiles, or at least to their mass-market nursery knockoffs. The installation’s base, three interlocking stainless-steel blocks with rounded corners, like modular plastic, are also painted Calder Red.

The Met Roof Commission isn’t easy to pull off. The artist competes not only with the breathtaking vista of Central Park, framed by a forest of Manhattan luxury towers, but also with the aura of the treasure house downstairs. Whatever the artist chooses to mount will promptly be Instagrammed to death in an endless summer bacchanal of selfies. So a winsome surefire crowd-pleaser like this, which turns gentle circles without ever getting anywhere, may simply be Da Corte’s satirical, if not especially biting, response to the assignment: Why try to get somewhere? Why not just give people what they want?

But that wouldn’t account for its undercurrent of melancholy, the pathos of an innocent creature in the grips of a big decision. Da Corte has spent his artistic career being other people — dressing up as rapper Eminem, even adapting Calder’s signature on this sculpture’s base — and constructing elaborate installations that give you the sense of having wandered into some other world, brightly colored but eerily unrooted.




(The museum received informal permission for the project from the Calder Foundation and Sesame Street.)

Born in New Jersey, he spent his early childhood in Venezuela, where he watched a Brazilian version of “Sesame Street” called “Vila Sésamo.” That show’s Big Bird equivalent, Garibaldo, is blue. But the characters don’t much resemble each other — if you can overlook their both being anthropomorphic birds — and this Bird’s blue isn’t even the same as Garibaldo’s. What this Bird’s tint really evokes, whether or not you’ve ever seen Garibaldo, is a confused memory, or “jamais vu” — déjà vu’s opposite, the feeling that something familiar is suddenly strange.

Jamais vu must have been the artist’s experience of moving to the United States as an 8-year-old. It’s certainly been unremitting for everyone this past year, as ordinary life became suddenly impossible and bizarre new habits — wiping down groceries, wearing a mask, or two — cycled in and out of practice. I suspect that most visitors at the Cantor Roof Garden will be asking themselves whether this is really what the place was like before the pandemic. (The answer is, not exactly: There used to be a roof garden bar.)

A blue Big Bird also brings to mind a disturbing scene in the 1985 children’s movie “Follow That Bird,” starring Sesame Street characters and puppets. Having captured, caged, and painted him the color of melancholy, two carnival grifters force Big Bird to perform a song called “I’m So Blue” — and then rake in the cash. As a metaphor for the artist’s relationship to institutions — with Da Corte, for example, as the sunshiny innocent, and the Met as his captor — the reference would be too easy. But as a picture of the childish innocence that we all learn to keep captive and subject to the crass demands of adult life, it’s kind of heartbreaking.

Everything about the piece — from the character itself to the graphic shapes and colors of the Calder-like mobile and the preschool play-set base — signifies whimsy. But recognizing whimsy, as a viewer, isn’t the same as feeling whimsical. In fact, it can sometimes feel like the opposite, a regret-saturated reminder that our days of whimsy are behind us. We have bills to pay, products to sell, wars to wage, statements to make, reviews to write. It isn’t our fault we can no longer reach the moon. Our ladders are simply too short.

The truth is that “As Long as the Sun Lasts” appealed to me in a visceral way I felt obliged to be suspicious of. Seeing a well-known children’s character in a space still dedicated to old-fashioned ideas of high culture made me feel as if someone was getting away with something. But when the breeze started up and Big Bird began to swing, it was surprisingly thrilling. I wanted a ride, myself. I even reached up to touch Big Bird’s foot. It was a few inches out of reach.

© 2021 The New York Times Company










Today's News

April 16, 2021

On the Met's roof, a wistful fantasy we've been waiting for

These rocks made a 1,000-mile trek. Did dinosaurs carry them?

How the largest animals that could ever fly supported giraffelike necks

The collection of Mrs. Henry Ford II Eaton Square and Turville Grange achieves £3,988,938

Libyan capital's neglected Old City gets facelift

Hindman to present historic & contemporary Western art in May auction

With a drone on the High Line, an artist reemerges from controversy

Lyon & Turnbull announces first dedicated Lalique sale

Macron says 'mobilisation' key to Notre-Dame rebuild target

Japan artisans showcase Olympic collection under virus cloud

Freeman's appoints Robin Nicholson as Art Museum Consultant

Galerie Nathalie Obadia opens an exhibition of new works on recycled paper by Nú Barreto

Shannon's Spring Fine Art auction now open for bidding

Norman Rockwell's first cover for Judge Magazine comes to auction after more than a century

Bonhams to offer rare painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner

400 days later, the New York Philharmonic returns

Lionel Messi's record breaking 644th goal scoring boots to be auctioned for charity

Screamers, a missing link of Los Angeles punk, is missing no more

Miami outdoor theater hit announces a New York arrival

College students create exhibition with Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Exhibition at FOTOHOF presents works that revolve around the city of Salzburg

Hales London reopens with a show of drawings and videos by Michael Smith

Italy's Benigni to receive Venice cinema career award

Swedish Academy loses bid to block Nazi use of classic poems

Vertigo: Symptoms and Solutions

How to find Argos supermarket near you in London

BUY WOODEN JIGSAW PUZZLE ONLINE

Is It Better Financially to Rent a Warehouse or to Make Your Own?

Beach Club Hallandale: Your Dream House Near The Ocean




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Houston Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง
Motorcycle Accident Lawyer

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful