This summer, visitors to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art were met with a familiar face. Alex Da Corte’s sculpture As Long as the Sun Lasts features a figure resembling Sesame Street’s Big Bird. He sits on a crescent moon gently swinging in the breeze on the museum’s roof. The stainless-steel structure is inspired by artist Alexander Calder’s mobiles.
Viewers will notice one big difference between the sculpture and Big Bird—
Da Corte’s version is blue. The artist was born in New Jersey but grew up in Venezuela. There, he watched the Brazilian rendition of Sesame Street, called Vila Sésamo. The show features Garibaldo, a blue version of Big Bird.
The artist added 7,000 laser-cut aluminum feathers to make the bird look more realistic.
Da Corte juggles joy, innocence, and whimsy with a touch of melancholy. The museum’s director, Max Hollein, explains, “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.”