Leif Bolter Pulserande koordinatsystem_2023
Guide for kids, Pulsating Coordinate System, 1969 – 1978
Leif Bolter
Runtine: 02:42
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:
Hello there! And welcome to Moderna Museet. Are you standing next to the big striped sculpture? Great! Let me tell you all about it. The artist who made it is named Leif Bolter. Leif calls it Pulsating Coordinate System.
Have you ever stood in the dark and looked up at the sky? This artist just loved looking at the stars when he was a kid. He loved seeing those stars spread out across the sky above him, looking like a great dome. Leif thought: Maybe I could become an astronomer who studies the stars and planets and outer space? But he didn´t become an astronomer, instead he became an artist.
See the dark colour of the sculpture? It’s a deep dark blue, it´s the blue of the night-sky, it´s the same colour that Leif saw when he looked up at the stars as a child. What other colours do you see? What shapes can you find? Patterns? How would you describe the sculpture to someone who have never seen it before?
Leif thought a lot about how something could expand and grow bigger and at the same time shrink and get smaller? Is that even possible?
Try going up and standing right under the middle of the sculpture. See how the tubes are rotating instead of being fixed in place? Now walk around the sculpture. Does it feel different standing at the center compared to standing back and looking at it from a little distance? This is what Leif Bolter has to say about his sculpture:
“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.”
Imagine if you wrote a poem about the sculpture – what would you have to say?