{"data":{"id":"2355","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":2355,"topgoose_id":5353,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":2355,"title":"Bi-Polar in Red","display_artist_text":"Theodore Roszak","display_date":"1940","accession_number":"79.6a-c","dimensions":"Overall: 54 5/16 × 8 5/8 × 8 5/8 in. (138 × 21.9 × 21.9 cm)","medium":"Metal, plastic and wood","department":"collection","classification":"Sculpture","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Burroughs Wellcome Purchase Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eTheodore Roszak, \u003cem\u003eBi-Polar in Red\u003c/em\u003e, 1940. Metal, plastic and wood, overall: 54 5/16 × 8 5/8 × 8 5/8 in. (138 × 21.9 × 21.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Burroughs Wellcome Purchase Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts 79.6a-c. © Estate of Theodore Roszak / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eWith the geometric sculptures he produced before World War II, Theodore Roszak became one of the few American artists to embrace the machine aesthetic of the Bauhaus and Constructivism. For the artists and architects associated with the vanguard Bauhaus school in Weimar, Germany, art was an ally of industry and an agent of social change. These ideals are best exemplified by Roszak’s sculptures\u003ci\u003e—\u003c/i\u003estreamlined, geometric forms fabricated from machine-inspired materials such as metal and plastic. The shapes are as precise as mathematical formulas\u003ci\u003e—Bi-Polar in Red\u003c/i\u003e resembles an infinity symbol rotated on its axis. Roszak intended the sculpture to suggest scientific models, to invoke “the same natural phenomenon as north vs. south pole. . .male vs. female. . .the bi-polarity of magnetic fields in space.” There is nevertheless something insistently anthropomorphic about\u003ci\u003e Bi-Polar in Red\u003c/i\u003e, with its ball of a head and arm-like appendages. Roszak’s sculpture is industrial, yet it remains somehow human, its sleek, torso-like form pointing optimistically toward a future of American innovation.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"A tall red double-cone sculpture with a white ball and brass arm stands on a round pedestal.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T15:57:22.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T11:59:52.482-05:00","images":[{"id":93996,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/2355/79_6a-c_vw1_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"1128","type":"artist"}]}}}}