Verbal Description Transcript:

Bougainvillier dates from 1947. It’s made of sheet metal, wire, rod, lead and paint. It stands about 6 and a half feet high and spreads to a width of over 7 feet. This is an abstract standing mobile: in other words, there is an element that stands on the floor, and there are parts of the sculpture that extend upwards and outwards and that can move. The sculpture is set on a circular white platform, 6 inches high and 10 feet in diameter. It has a curved wall behind it. The standing part of the sculpture is matte black in color and abstract in shape. It’s formed of a sweeping crescent-like sheet of metal, with two more curved metal pieces attached at right angles. Together, they form a three-legged structure that supports the sculpture. At their feet these three legs rest directly on the white platform. At its apex, the central metal piece comes to a single shard-like point. Across the top of the shard a long, wavy red metal rod extends to either side, with various different elements attached. At one end of the rod hangs a horizontal metal disc, in the same matte black as the standing base. The disc is pierced with a large opening, that encircles the shard. It’s hung loosely, so it can quiver and tilt. This large disc is balanced, at the far end of the rod, by wavy lengths of wire ending in delicate abstract forms. One of the wires, which stands upright from the sculpture, supports a spray of small white metal dots on the ends of fine wires. A second and third end in clusters of roughly triangular white metal forms: the clusters hang from the ends of their wires by short chains, so they move freely. From a fourth wire, a red disc hangs horizontally: again, it can tilt and shake in passing air currents. The shape and composition of the sculpture changes according to the movement of the wires in changing air currents.