Alex Da Corte's rooftop installation at the Met references Italo Calvino

Alex Da Corte's installation "As Long as the Sun Lasts" has been unveiled on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, drawing inspiration from a short story by Italo Calvino. The sculpture features a large blue bird with 7,000 aluminum feathers, perched on a crescent moon holding a short ladder. It moves with the wind, creating what the New York Times called an "Instagrammable to die for" scene. Da Corte conceived the work during the pandemic to evoke the disorientation caused by COVID-19, with the figure feeling familiar yet strange. The bird references Big Bird from Sesame Street but is blue, not yellow, and recalls Gariboldo, the anthropomorphic bird from the Brazilian version of Sesame Street that Da Corte watched as a child in Venezuela. The installation also nods to Alexander Calder's mobiles, a connection informally approved by the Calder Foundation. The Met's rooftop, previously home to a bar, has been transformed into one of the city's best viewing points, now filled with wisteria scent and color. The work will be on view throughout the summer.