Big Bambú is a work of

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific art, site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior intervent ...

by identical twin artists Doug and Mike Starn. Variations on the Big Bambu theme have been constructed at several locations around the world. Combining architecture and sculpture, it examines the tension between chaos and order in nature.

History

Big Bambú had its first installation in the artists' studio in

Beacon, New York Beacon is a Administrative divisions of New York#City, city located on the Hudson River in Dutchess County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city's population was 13,769. Beacon is part of the Kiryas ...

.See It, Feel It, Touch It, Climb It
Carol Vogel, February 11, 2010, ''The New York Times'' From April to October 2010 it was the featured exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden. In 2011 another incarnation of Big Bambú was installed as a collateral exhibition of the 54th

Biennale In the art world, a biennale ( , ; ), is a large-scale international contemporary art exhibition. The term was popularised by the Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895, but the concept of such a large scale, and intentionally internationa ...

in Venice, Italy. In 2013, it was installed on the Japanese island of Teshima during the Setouchi Triennale art festival. In 2014, it was presented in the

Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. Big Bambú is made of thousands of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

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.Be a part of the art; Sculpture you can walk through
Barbara Hoffman and Calla Salinger, ''New York Post'', June 19, 2010.Une jungle de bambous sur le toit du Met
Adèle Smith, ''Le Figaro'', June 4, 2010 The name is taken from the

Cheech & Chong Cheech & Chong are a comedy duo founded in Vancouver and consisting of American Cheech Marin and Canadian Tommy Chong. The duo found commercial and cultural success in the 1970s and 1980s with their stand-up routines, studio recordings, and fea ...

album '' Big Bambu''Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambu
, NYC Arts, The Complete Guide. 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.A Day of Art Along the Hudson
William Haseltine, ''The Atlantic'', May 25, 2009 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 ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' style magazine.Now Showing , The Making of The Starn Brothers ‘T’
Alix Browne.

Metropolitan Museum installation

The installation on the roof of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

was conceived as a giant wave cresting over the rooftop."Living" bamboo sculpture opens at Met rooftop garden
Walden Siew, Reuters, April 27, 2010.
''The Telegraph'', April 27, 2010. Art critic Karen Wilkin wrote that the experience of walking on the roof terrace under the sculpture felt like "wandering through a bamboo grove."Branching Out Atop the Met Museum With 'Big Bambú', Doug and Mike Starn Have Erected a Surrogate Forest, At Once Artificial and Natural
''The Wall Street Journal'', Karen Wilkin, May 12, 2010. 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." 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. The construction was undertaken by the artists working together with a team of twenty qualified rock climbers.Big Bambu; April 27, 2010 – October 31, 2010
, ''Metropolitan Museum of Art Press Release'', Construction continued 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. Museum visitors were required to wear rubber-soled, close-toed shoes to climb through the structure. Visitors could walk underneath the sculpture without obtaining a ticket and with no restriction on footwear.

Israel Museum installation

''Big Bambu: 5000 arms to hold you'', constructed in the sculpture garden of the

in 2014, is 16 meters (52.5 feet) high and covers an area of over 700 square meters (7,500 square feet). Visitors are invited to climb on the framework of 10,000 bamboo poles bound by rope, which forms a labyrinth of winding paths and offers panoramic views of the Jerusalem cityscape.

Ordrupgård Museum, Denmark

In 2018 a ''Big Bambú'' installation was made at Ordrupgård Museum in Denmark.

References

External links

York Times interview and film

Video of configuration of Big Bambú as ''The New York Times "T".

Starns brothers' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Big Bambu 2010 sculptures 2014 sculptures Installation art works Bamboo