Surprise Packages

Two U.S. museums have taken the wraps off their latest acquisitions, revealing summer surprises that rank high as novelties and hold their own as modern art.

P: In Manhattan last week the Metropolitan Museum proudly unveiled a brand-new, glittering gold-wire construction that at first glance looked like a jumbo-sized Christmas-tree decoration from Cartiers:

U.S. Sculptor-Welder Richard Lippold's Variation Within a Sphere, No. 10; The Sun. For the Met, which specially commissioned The Sun, Lippold outdid himself, labored three years putting together, with 14,000 hand-welded joints, almost two miles of 22-carat gold-filled wire. Hung by stainless steel wires in one of the Met's Oriental-rug rooms, The Sun measures 22 ft. long, 11 ft. high and 5 1/2 ft. deep.

A radiant central sphere, 401n. in diameter, rotates with the gentlest breeze. Soaring outward from the free-moving core are finespun wire planes in the form of arcs (the sun's corona and prominences), so finely constructed that they quiver with the building's imperceptible vibration. Even more remarkable than the feat of putting it together is Sculptor Lippold's assurance that he can disassemble The Sun, pack it away in handy-sized packing crates. P: In Minneapolis the Institute of Arts had on view a 21 in. bronze Monkey and Her Baby, by 74-year-old Pablo Picasso. To make his ,lonkey, Picasso took a child's toy auto for a head, car spring for a tail and a machined iron sphere for a body, shaped in the rest with clay. The end product: a heavy-footed baboon shape that rates a guffaw, yet carries over an unabashed tribute to mammalian protectiveness and love that can be enjoyed long after the laughter has subsided.

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