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New Biggs Museum sculpture is for the birds

Delawareans may have noticed a new addition to the Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover.

A large sculpture of over 2000 aluminum birds now highlights the museum’s newly reconstructed three- story entrance atrium.

Erica Loustau, a former Wilmington elementary school art teacher created the sculpture.

The artist has created several site specific installations of swarming birds that have shown at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts and the Delaware College of Art and Design.

But those exhibits were temporary. The new sculpture at the Biggs will be a permanent fixture.

Loustau has long been fascinated by the movement and organization of flocks of birds. She says her sculpture was inspired by the red winged blackbird which can be seen throughout the Delaware landscape.

“They tend to flock together and they give us those beautiful choreographed performances during certain seasons,” she says. “I wanted to pick up on that and use the flock as a way to activate that atrium space.”

The line of the flock of birds draws the eye across the museum’s façade and throughout the second and third floors overlooking the atrium.

This piece is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.

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