Though a snowman is, as Fischli observes, a “sculpture that almost anyone can make,” this one is dependent on a technically complex apparatus in order to exist year-round. To create the figure, humidity was pumped into the freezer, which then condensed around a three-part copper mold. This sculpture is an updated version of one commissioned in 1987 by a thermic power plant in Saarbrücken, Germany. For that sculpture, excess energy was siphoned from the plant to keep the snowman frozen. MoMA’s Snowman runs on a 4000 Btu compressor and consumes energy at roughly the same rate as a small window-unit air conditioner like those used in domestic settings.
Gallery label from 2023
