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My interest in Jim Henson is a lifelong interest. I wanted to really walk in his footsteps.
It s not to say that putting on prosthetics or dressing like someone gives you a sense of
another person's lived experience but if I can be within another person's form, even if just for
a time, I might better understand another point of view.
Hi Alex.
Hi Shanay.
You frequently stage immersive environments.
So how did you approach The Met's roof and the openness of this location?
When I came to do a site visit almost a year and a half ago, I remember being taken by the vista,
by the power of the blue, by the power of the sky and all plans were washed away.
Whatever it is that lives on this stage must be in service to the sky.
Throughout your practice, you've taken on a diverse range of identities,
Eminem, Mr. Rogers, the Wicked Witch of the West,
Jim Henson. What is it about taking on another character?
It stems from thinking about characters I loved or didn't understand and wanted to understand more.
And I see Jim as quite a thoughtful maker. During this year, I was reconsidering
these kinds of familiar forms of Calder and the familiar face of
Big Bird and the Muppets, and realizing that there s a kind of earnestness and a joy in their
craft and their making.
Having visited the studio before we installed there were
many versions of Big Bird and quite an elaborate mood board. What was that process like?
I didn't know how we would approach translating something small to be quite large.
I didn't want Big Bird to feel like a plastic toy.
I wanted Big Bird to feel like the real Big Bird.
I wanted this form to harken back to an earlier work I had made where I would make rattlesnakes
with fake acrylic fingernails and sequins, I'm so interested in this slow process of building frame
by frame to make a bigger picture. My earlier years of studying art was focused on animation.
Looking at hundreds and even thousands of images of Big Bird, myself and my studio mates
tried to figure out what might be the most efficient way to build this eight
and a half-foot-tall bird.
And all the feathers have been placed individually.
We do make everything by hand and we wanted it to be made feather by feather and appear soft.
And if I were to categorize the work of Jim Henson, I'd say it was soft power. And I love
this notion of softness being the new hard.
You made one very crucial decision early on, which is
it had to move. Calder's standing mobile—you've transformed it and looked at Little Tikes Outdoor
Activity gyms, which debuted in 1987.
These activity gyms appeal because they are a way for
a small person to build a home. And there's something in Calder's work, that has the kind of
accessibility of do-it-yourself, that you can too make a world, make a universe.
There are some other art historical references that you were contemplating from
The Met's collection. The series of the Unicorn Tapestries.
I love that work so much because the fence that encloses the unicorn is
open and quite low. And I always thought that the unicorn is not trapped, but free to go.
And I see a sisterhood with Big Bird. I see a kind of freedom in Jim Henson's
work that aligns itself to the unicorn.
You've also brought a whole set of personal associations to the piece as well.
I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela watching this Brazilian version
of Sesame Street, Vila Sesamo. There's a character in that show named Garibaldo who was blue.
Coincidentally, there is a film in the 1980s called Follow That Bird in which Big Bird
goes on a journey looking for their true home and on their adventure gets trapped and painted blue.
Putting Big Bird on the moon and watching Big Bird look over a city and look at the sky affords them
a kind of freedom that maybe was taken from them in that film and one that I wanted to,
so desperately give back to them.
Titling piece As Long as the Sun Lasts has an immense resonance
for our present moment and circumstances.
The short story As Long as the Sun Lasts written by Italo Calvino considers
a planet not so far away in which there is a couple bickering over whether
to pack up and leave the planet or to stay. And I think there's something beautiful about
staying and enduring difference. And As Long as the Sun Lasts proposes there's
more work to do.
There are new frontiers to seek out.
If I were to think of this year as four seasons in hell, then I imagine
there must be four seasons of love approaching us, and that led me to Donna Summer's
album cover for her Four Seasons of Love in which
she's lounging on a crescent moon. And I think Big Bird is performing
a slight Donna Summeresque moment there.
You've also placed a ladder in their hand.
That's the moment of recognizing that change is possible.
And Big Bird's gaze shifts and changes like our own on our circumstances.
It was important that this work be constantly changing as
the world changes and that that's a testament to the beauty of a world that exists outside of one
maker's life.
You've dedicated the work to your father.
Yeah, he sought out a new world in 1969,
which was the United States. I wanted to do something that would make my father proud.
This work is proposing a new way of looking at this world from afar or from outside of
ourselves. The sky can make you feel so small but also so connected to the rest of the world.
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