Each Spring the Metropolitan Museum of Art unveils a new installation. This year the museum is presenting an Alicja Kwade”s installation titled “Parapivot”.The two steel and stone sculptures are based on perceptions of solar systems. Each is comprised of a series of rectangular black steel frames with stone orbs balanced on the beams. One structure features 3 intersecting rectangles and the other has 5 rectangles.
Here is the sculpture with 5 rectangles.
Each of the five frames are perpendicular to the ground. Looking at the work from a distance the view of the rectangular frames is distorted, appearing to be trapezoids and other irregular quadrilaterals.
Focusing on the intersecting lines of the bases of the rectangles helps to understand how the shapes have been arranged in space. Building a 3-D steel line drawing to create flat open planes juxtaposed with the weightiness of the stone spheres Kwade presents questions of perception.
Susan Happersett
fibonaccisusan 