Guide for adults, Pulsating Coordinate System, 1969 – 1978

Leif Bolter

Leif Bolter, Pulsating Coordinate System (1969 – 1978). The artwork, which belongs to the Moderna Museet collection, consists of rotating plastic cylinders with navy blue and white stripes. Leif Bolter (b. 1941) is a sculptor who has created a large number of well-known public works and decorations. The work is located outside Moderna Museet Malmö, Ola Billgrens Plats in Malmö.

Narrator:
Leif Bolters sculpture “Pulsating Coordinate System” from 1969 was installed outside Moderna Museet in 2013. Bolter is driven in his work by curiosity. He sees the whole creative process as an adventure. He enjoys the technical challenges he confronts in the creation of his works.

This sculpture is 6 meters tall and is made of three rotating tubes on different axes that rotate and intersect in the middle. They are made of plastic pipe and painted with blue and white candy stripes. Bolter’s keen interest in the natural sciences has been a driving force in his work as an artist. As a child, he was fascinated by looking up at the stars on a dark night. He was overwhelmed by the grunder and the magnificence of the night sky. It made a deep impression on him. The inspiration for this work comes from the theory that the distance between galaxies is always growing – the expansion of the universe began with the “Big Bang”.

But Bolter felt free to take some artistic license with the science. The theory of relentless expansion did not appeal to him. He was more interested in the idea of a pulsating universe; alternatively expanding and contracting. So he gave himself an assignment as a sculptor: to design something that is expanding and collapsing at the same time. The result was a series of five artworks, one of them is “Pulsating Coordinate System.” The size of this artwork makes it possible for us to stand right in the middle of it. By looking both down on it from above, and up through it from below, we get an experience of Bolter’s ideas. What are optical illusions? Are perceptions of the mind the same as fascts?  Bolter wants us to ask ourselves what the truth really is. How sure can we be about our own conclusions?

Leif Bolter wrote: “Form, sculpture, architecture, surface, solid, space are the language I use, and have been ever since those endless hours I spent lying on my belly, playing with my toy blocks, building up whole worlds. I´m a seeker, a spy, a scout, hunting after forms and spaces for my ideas. I want to build, with solids and voids, with time and light and find a place I can just sense is there – deep within the architecture of existence.