As Long as the Sun Lasts (commissioned for The Met's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, 2021)

For his installations and sculptures, Alex Da Corte appropriates and reimagines cultural icons to "insist on new ways of looking at familiar things." In As Long as the Sun Lasts, Da Corte "borrows" Big Bird—the curious, benevolent Muppet of Sesame Street—and the modern aesthetic of Alexander Calder’s standing mobiles.

The roof sculpture has affinities with Calder’s work, but by fashioning it in the modular language of Little Tikes outdoor activity sets—that require no tools and can be easily reconfigured—Da Corte emphasizes modern inventiveness. Near the top of the form, against the vast sky, Big Bird perches on a crescent moon with a ladder in hand, suggesting the possibility of passage back to earth or to other galaxies. Appearing introspective, the Muppet’s melancholy disposition is amplified by Da Corte’s decision to render the character in blue. This choice of color gestures to Da Corte’s personal associations with Big Bird: growing up partially in Venezuela, he watched the Brazilian version of Sesame Street in which Big Bird’s counterpart, Garibaldo, was blue.

Da Corte dedicated the work to his father who emigrated to the United States in 1969, and hence the work is inscribed "69" on its base. It was also the year man landed on the moon, and the first time Sesame Street aired on PBS.

Developed during the first surge of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, As Long as the Sun Lasts calls for a moment to pause, to reflect, to be "blue," but ultimately it is a statement of belief in the potential of transformation. The need to make an imaginative leap is underscored by the title for the commission, which was inspired by a whimsical short story by the Italian author Italo Calvino. Rotating gently in the wind, Da Corte’s sculpture reminds us that stability is an illusion and that moving forward occurs in fits and starts.