“Set within the Noguchi-designed landscape of our Billy Rose Art Garden, and against the dramatic backdrop of Jerusalem’s broader landscape, 5,000 Arms to Hold You marked the first time the Starns had been commissioned to develop a work in their signature medium of bamboo in a setting without architectural constraint,” said James S. Snyder, the Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum. “From the inception of its creation, Big Bambú has activated our Garden with the energy of its emerging form, representing through both experience and metaphor the Starns’ reflections on how chaos actually creates the order that is our lives”

The ninth work in the Starns’ Big Bambú series, 5,000 Arms to Hold You marks the largest and most complex sculptural installation undertaken by the artists to date. Its architecture builds upon the artists’ ongoing investigation of the interconnectedness of life, which serves as a foundational principal and guiding philosophy for their unique approach to making art. 

The tower element that comprises the highest point of 5,000 Arms to Hold You remains as a permanent sculptural installation in the Museum’s Garden.