Top of the World, Wendell Castle

Exhibition Label:
"Wendell Castle: About Time," Sep-2008, Lara Kuykendall and Susan Earle
Top of the World plays with the idea of a traditional grandfather clock. Castle recalls lyrics from a song that he first heard when he was a child: “My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf, so it stood 90 years on the floor.”

“It occurred to me that grandfathers are ancient,” Castle says, “and given the fact that they never stop, I wondered why they never got tired. It seemed to me that a grandfather clock might get tired and might enjoy having a seat. And then I put it on this sort of sphere-which suggests to me the world-so it sits on top of the world.”