Westley Olmsted (1934-2011)

Wes Olmsted’s sculpture references Paul Klee’s Twittering Machine (1922) in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Klee’s watercolor and ink drawing showing an imaginary hand-cranked instrument comprised of four birds is said to portray “literally, a fusing of the natural with the industrial world.” Intrigued by similar ideas, Olmsted made a human figure more prominent in his 3-D sculpture. Its singular eye might reference the all-seeing eye floating in the pyramid’s peak on the back of a one-dollar bill. The figure shackled in Olmsted’s twittering machine balances a watch among many other weights and objects connected with his treadmill—much like a Rube Goldberg machine that activates a bizarre and humorously complex chain reaction to perform a simple task. (Nancy Weekly, Head of C0llections and Charles Cary Rumsey Curator, 2011)