Photographs from Sculpture by the Sea 2007 (part 1)
November 21st 2007 04:54
'Wallaroo' by Nigel White
This was the 11th annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, Thursday 1 November to Sunday 18 November, along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk -- the "largest temporary exhibition in the world" (claims the programme). One hundred and six sculptures from 18 different countries, attracting about half a million visitors.
Check out the official website here.
And check out my pics from 2006 here (part 1) and here (part 2).
So I went this year on Tuesday 13 November, and I raced through in a couple of hours (whereas, normally, I can quite easily linger for half an hour in front of a single sculpture).
The day was a battle with dying camera batteries, armies of schoolchildren, dirt, flies, dogshit, and blazing midday sun (drank three litres of water, sweating like a pig, and still thirsted). On the way back to Sydney, the bus ran past the Bondi skin cancer clinic -- nice gentle reminder there.
Images (click on each to expand) are in the order in which I took them, and there's about half of the exhibition there. I'm quite happy for anyone to use these images (or last year's images) for any purpose, as long as you credit me and include a link.
My comments on the sculptures were made before reading the title of the piece or considering the artist's statement.
I've included the artists' statements for the sake of completeness, but on the whole I found them unhelpful. Either they were meaningless wankerisms, or they told me what I already knew, or they didn't have anything to do with how I reacted, or they made the sculpture worse, perhaps by inserting some preachy message or dumbing it down or spoiling the mystery. -- A good example of "death of the author" and why one shouldn't privilege the creator's interpretation...
***
A fairly empty Bondi Beach in the foreground, and the cliffs that the sculptures inhabit in the background.
If you can be bothered to expand the image, you can just make out a huge X -- what looks like a landing strip on the grass. This is actually two giant bandaids -- a sculpture entitled "She'll be right!", by Julie Milton -- about the effectiveness of environmental efforts.
'Twisted reality' by Tomas Misura
Strangely fitting. Enjoys the open.
It seems to be quite natural, at the seaside or in the mountains, to believe in the traces of giants (think of the Giants Causeway in Ireland).
Note also the way this sculpture is integrated into the environment, partly because of its reflectivity.
Sunbathing.
Huge things have an immediate effect on you.
Flying.
Artist comments: "Dream the impossible..."
'Recommissioned' by Jesse Cox
Stories issued from the rusty showerheads/speakers. One stood in their audio shower.
Affable and anthropomorphic.
The grace of everyday objects.
Artist comments: "Exploring the idea of reusing public showers to tell the stories and histories of the Bondi and Tamarama coastline."
'Bondi fashion accessory' by Frank Malerba
From a male perspective, one searches for the pornography of the image -- femininity, curves, elegance of movement, the combined female presence, etc. And one enjoys the illusion of the image.
When a real Bondi girl comes along, does she see a mirror, does she look at an image looking at her, which stereotypes her, and comments, if in a friendly or even adoring way, on her personality and lifestyle? Or does she look through the image, and see only sea?
Does she perceive a male gaze, which itself is commented on?
If it wasn't already obvious, a lot of these sculptures either: (1) are integrated with the landscape; or (2) are showcased by the landscape; or (3) in turn showcase, point to, comment on the landscape.
Says the artist: "The dog is not only man's best friend but also a girl's fashion accessory, showing her personality and individuality."
'Salt box' by Alex Asch
One reads the object with the landscape, imagines it is designed for it -- "This is a lighthouse / a weatherbeaten house by Bondi". -- But it could easily have been intended as a weatherbeaten farmhouse, or a house in a country town, etc.
In the top room there lives a telephone.
Artist writes: "'Salt Box' is a term given to the small wooden houses facing the Atlantic along the North East coast of the USA. My sculpture is a portrait of me, relocated in Australia and facing the Pacific."
'Anemone' by Tim Ferrier
In the worlds before Monkey, primal chaos reigned. Heaven sought order, but the phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown. The four worlds formed again and yet again, as endless aeons wheeled and passed. Time, and the pure essences of heaven, the moistures of the earth, the powers of the sun and the moon, all worked upon a certain rock, old as creation -- and it became magically fertile. That first egg was named... Thought. Tathagata Buddha, the father Buddha, said: "With our thoughts we make the world." Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch. From it then came a stone monkey. The nature of Monkey was... irrepressible!
Cradled, and held out to sea.
Artist comments: "The seed of a city."
'Who will save us now?' by Cezary Stulgis
Mournful, and baying out to sea?
Would you have read them as sad without the title?
To a certain extent, these sculptures are haunted -- in the sense that they remind you of older sculptures. Last year, lizards lived here.
Sinister pack?
Artist comments: "At the heart of my work is a sincere concern for society. My aim is to examine the forever changing values of contemporary society and reflect upon our cultural past."
'Sydney real estate scramble' by Jan Shaw
One is reminded of similar arrangements (for instance, the goat people from 2006).
Note the girl at the top, taking a photo of the spectator.
Where are they all going?
They shimmeringly move as the spectator does.
I find the name of the piece heavy-handed, let alone the artist statement: "Golden silhouettes of stereotypical Sydneyites clamouring and scrambling up slippery slopes in a race to obtain the pinnacle of possessions, money, power and real estate, real estate, real estate."
'Sea shells' by Anna Gunnarsdottir
I find these somewhat sickening and dangerous. I hate the way the mouths gape. And I hate that they think.
Some sort of primitive intelligence gasping for life and slithering out of the sea.
Doubt any of this was intended, though. The artist writes: "My sculpture depicts Icelandic nature, its wild beauty and freedom. The form is sought from nature or from the sea."
'Metamorphosis' by Maurizio Perron
Wooden smoke?
'Watering forms' by Stephen Tero
Artist comments: "Consumptive aesthetic survival. Are seaside things aware of their beauty? Are we aware of their consumption?"
'Means of escape' by Peter Tilley
The way it integrates and frames the landscape -- grass, surf, water, sky --, the way it confronts you, rising up from the earth, and the associations of the branches, suggest to me some sort of nature goddess.
Or is it a chided schoolboy?
One also thinks, as with many of these sculptures, that one has seen the style before -- wasn't this sculpture, or one very like it, in the 2006 exhibition?
Artist comments: "A 3D still life of universally accessible objects that invites multiple interpretations and an opportunity for reflection."
'The mollusc that ate the harbour bridge' by Dan Stewart-Moore
I originally perceived this as the bridge coming out of the shell -- not, as the name suggests, going in.
Artist comments: "For me, Sydney's connection to the sea is what makes it so special. But is it also Sydney's nemesis?"
'Wreath' by Jane Gillings
Fairy ring of junk.
Artist comments: "Using the products of a throw away society, my garden needs no water to survive and forms a wreath in its own memory."
'Guardian figure' by Mike Macgregor
Friendly -- giving directions to, or kissing the hand of, a passer-by.
The thing.
Stern, menacing sentry.
No, that's not me.
Isn't it curious how it contains the spectator, itself, and the ocean behind it?
Or how the spectator becomes the spirit of the landscape.
Artist comments: "The xanthorrhoea stands as a figure which holds history and myth, passive in the landscape, a strong watching presence."
'Tetrage # 4' by David Jones
Perched.
Personally I see a spatial dance that looks a little Escher-like. But the artist comments: "The work stems from thoughts of entrapment, imprisonment of ideas or actions, repression of freedoms, containtment of space, collapse and ruin."
'Fobitu' by Britta Stenmanns
Couldn't get all of this in the one photo.
Again, one thinks of 2006 -- the Christian and Islamic pillars that used to be here.
Actually, the more I looked, the more dissatisfied I was with this one. Faces didn't seem to me differentiated enough, the spirits-in-the-wood thing began to lose its impact, and it struck me that there was supposed to be some sort of political message.
Artist comments: "'Is it fobitu you want?' I wanted hardwood but what was fobitu? From there on I discovered the local history tied to this Australian icon -- the fobitu (4" x 2")."
'I-Sea' by Tim Kyle
Hmm... Where have I seen your butt before?
Sea-blue, and indifferent to people.
Artist comments: "'I-Sea' is a monumental figurative statement based on a self-portrait. The sculpture's purpose is to attain a connection between itself and its environment."
It makes me wonder about the extent to which "The Big Man" was a self-portrait and was connected to environment.
'M.071001' by Toshio Iezumi
Distorted worlds.
Catches things like a snowglobe.
Curves with the sea.
Glass, mirrors, and curves.
Artist comments: "Through being transparent, can glass turn into material for sculpture by means of visual depth and textures?"
Don't know why he bothers asking.
'Cycle-90 degrees, a premonition of wind' by Kaoru Matsumoto
Reduced to raw form and colour. Streamlined, machine-as-natural. Twisting in the wind, despite its weight.
Artist comments: "Feel the wind. Be one with the wind. The sculptures operate by combining precision bearings with the precise design and weighting of the sculpture's components. This creates sculptures that are highly responsive to their environments and attain different characters as the wind speed and direction change."
'Carcutter' by Dillon McEwan
Crowd pleaser.
Where are you going with that?
Used to be a nice car.
Artist comments: "'Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.' All things change and we must change with them."
'The tribe' by Willemina Villari
Sandstone people, on sandstone.
Artist writes: "A tribe belongs to its environment, arises from it, its members share in its bounty and its stories are shaped by it."
'Life boat/Thuyen cuu roi' by Nerine Martini
I found this whole thing rather spooky -- skeletal ship, disembodied hands -- but the artist writes: "Made in Vietnam, this sculpture is about ocean journeys of courage and compassion."
'Rain wall' by Maria Fernanda Cardoso
Defamiliarisation of everyday objects, a new perspective on them.
And sometimes you get to the heart of something by refracting it through something else.
Children getting wet.
Artist writes: "A wall covered with a myriad of cascading nylon rods. Somehow it reminds you of water: a waterfall, a rolling wave, rain."
'Where have I gone wrong' by Ludwig Mlcek
I thought this one was quite responsive to the environment.
Artist comments: "There is nothing I can say about my work as it is the embodiment of my thoughts. One can only try to evaluate how I translated ideas from my head to my hands."
Don't know why he wrote anything at all then.
***
Click here for part 2 of the exhibition.
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Comment by Damo
Comment by postmoderncritic
Postmodern Critic
Relativity Watch
Padsoc
I love the concept of Sculpture by the Sea, and this year's sculptures had lots of curves and waves to them, which I liked.
Thanks for going to the trouble to take all the photos you have here - it's great to get diff. perspectives on the same work of art.
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
mis
Comment by sukubus
Now in it's second year and well on the way to establishing itself as a cool destination.
(still with flys unfortunately!) not the blog luckily..
Really Long Link
Comment by Nonymous
Philosophy Blog
Damo -- thanks for dropping by.
Dear Epiphanie -- taking the photos was no trouble at all; although sticking them up here was a bit tedious.
Ms W -- thanks for your thank you, though my motives weren't particularly altruistic. I guess the process of thinking about the sculptures and photos, and writing about them, brings a sense of closure, and I can move on to the next experience.
Sukubus -- thanks for visiting, and thanks for linking to your blog -- looks like a wonderful exhibition! I won't be able to make it up to the Hunter Valley this year, but will try to catch it next year.