Big Bambú

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Big Bambú
Artist Doug and Mike Starn
Year 2010 (2010)
Type installation art
Dimensions 15 m × 15 m × 30 m (50 ft × 50 ft × 100 ft)
Location Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden, New York City

Big Bambú: You Can't, You Don't, and You Won't Stop is a piece of installation art by identical twin artists Doug and Mike Starn.

Big Bambú had its first installation in the artists' studio in Beacon, New York.[1] From April to October 2010 it was the featured exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden.[1] In 2011 another incarnation of Big Bambú was installed as a collateral exhibition of the 54th Biennale in Venice, Italy.[2]

Big Bambú is made of thousands of bamboo poles, lashed together to form a complex structure through which visitors walk on elevated bamboo paths even as a crew continues to build a new part of the structure.[3][4]

The first part of the name is taken from the Cheech & Chong album Big Bambu[5] while the second part is a line from Sure Shot by the Beastie Boys.

First installation

In the original installation in the artists studio in Beacon, New York, Big Bambú is in continual motion as a crew disassembles one end and continues to build the other end.[6] The piece was reconfigured into a gothic letter "T" to be photographed for the cover of the fifth anniversary edition of the New York Times style magazine.[7]

Metropolitan Museum installation

The installation on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was conceived as a giant wave cresting over the rooftop.[8][9] Art critic Karen Wilkin wrote that the experience of walking on the roof terrace under the sculpture felt like "wandering through a bamboo grove."[10] She described the piece as not a "significant sculpture... it's more of a phenomenon. But it's a delightful addition to the Met for the next six months—a temporary, ecologically correct folly designed to entertain."[10]

Big Bambú is built of several types of bamboo, primarily a Japanese type called Madake, and also thin Meyeri bamboo and thick moso bamboo. All of the bamboo was grown in Georgia and South Carolina.[8] The construction was undertaken by the artists working together with a team of twenty qualified rock climbers.[11] Construction will continue throughout the exhibition's six month run, with the sculpture ultimately reaching 100 feet long, 50 feet wide, 50 feet high and using 3,200 bamboo poles.[11] Museum visitors are required to wear rubber-soled, close-toed shoes if they wish to climb through the structure. Tickets are free but in limited supply. Visitors can walk underneath the sculpture without obtaining a timed ticket and wearing whatever shoes they choose.[11]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 See It, Feel It, Touch It, Climb It, Carol Vogel, February 11, 2010, New York Times
  2. ↑ http://www.starnstudio.com/Big%20Bambu%20Venice.html
  3. ↑ Be a part of the art; Sculpture you can walk through, Barbara Hoffman and Calla Salinger, New York Post, June 19, 2010.
  4. ↑ Une jungle de bambous sur le toit du Met, Adèle Smith, Le Figaro, 04/06/2010
  5. ↑ Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambu, NYC Arts, The Complete Guide.
  6. ↑ A Day of Art Along the Hudson, William Haseltine, The Atlantic, May 25, 2009
  7. ↑ Now Showing | The Making of The Starn Brothers ‘T’, Alix Browne.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Living" bamboo sculpture opens at Met rooftop garden, Walden Siew, Reuters, April 27, 2010.
  9. ↑ Big Bambu: Met visitors climb on bamboo exhibit in NY, The Telegraph, 27 Apr 2010.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Branching Out Atop the Met Museum With 'Big Bambú', Doug and Mike Starn Have Erected a Surrogate Forest, At Once Artificial and Natural, Wall Street Journal, Karen Wilkin, May 12, 2010.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Big Bambu; April 27, 2010—October 31, 2010, Metropolitan Museum of Art Press Release,

External links

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