Focus on this artwork and explore the Metropolitan Museum installation.
The installation on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was conceived as a giant wave cresting over the rooftop. Art critic Karen Wilkin wrote that the experience of walking on the roof terrace under the sculpture felt like "wandering through a bamboo grove." 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. 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.
bamboo Karen Wilkin Metropolitan Museum of Art