Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Str–The Met?
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s beloved rooftop garden sculpture has finally been revealed for 2021…and it’s being taken over by a classic nostalgic TV show!
After last year’s soaring “Lattice Detour” garden wall by Mexican artist Héctor Zamora, the 2021 feature is a bit more eccentric. The museum selected Philadelphia-based artist Alex Da Corte to create the site-specific installation called “As Long as the Sun Lasts,” which features none other than famed Sesame Street character Big Bird (yes, you read that right!).
A press release explains that As Long as the Sun Lasts is a “26-foot-tall kinetic sculpture featuring the beloved Sesame Street character Big Bird and the modern aesthetic of Alexander Calder’s standing mobiles.”
The sculpture involves a base with three interlocking features, along with a mobile Big Bird piece sitting on a crescent moon that sways in the wind. The character is colored blue instead of yellow, because of his “melancholic disposition” and also as an homage to the Brazilian version of Sesame Street that De Corte grew up with, where Big Bird’s counterpart Garibaldo was blue.
The bird is made of about 7,000 individually placed laser-cut aluminum feathers. He’s holding a ladder, “suggesting the possibility of passage back to Earth or to other galaxies,” they explained.
“Alex Da Corte’s bold work for the Cantor Roof Garden oscillates between joy and melancholy, and brings a playful message of optimism and reflection,” Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Met said.
“The installation, which the artist initiated just as the pandemic was taking hold, invites us to look through a familiar, popular, modern lens at our own condition in a transformed emotional landscape. As the sculpture gently rotates in the wind, it calls us in an assuring way to pause and reflect: We are reminded that stability is an illusion, but ultimately what we see is a statement of belief in the potential of transformation.”
The work is on view from April 16 through October 31, 2021. The Met is located at 1000 5th Ave.
featured image source: The Met / Anna-Marie Kellen