A big blue version of Big Bird from Sesame Street has landed on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The 26-foot-tall sculpture is called “As Long As The Sun Lasts” -- named for Italo Calvino’s short story about intergalactic travelers searching for a planet to call home. The commissioned installation designed by American conceptual artist Alex Da Corte also gives nod in design and function to the famous mobile sculptures of Alexander Calder as it spins lazily in the breeze high atop Fifth Avenue.
The bird’s 7,000 aluminum feathers are painted blue in reference to the Muppet’s blue Brazilian cousin, Garibaldo, who Da Corte watched on TV as a child in Venezuela.
It’s enchanting to watch the mobile slowly twirl above the skyline of New York. It feels like a bright spot of hope on the horizon as we slowly begin to emerge from a worldwide pandemic. But as the breezes stop or shift direction, it does too, reminding us that things in our lives these days seem to shift from moment to moment.
Big Bird is scheduled to hang out up there through October 31, 2021.
Photo: Hyla Skopitz / Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art; video, HappinessArchive.com
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