While it’s true that the new sculpture commissioned by the Wellington City Council from Weta to celebrate the World Cup feels like it is one of a kind (even rugby people think it looks wrong from a technical in-the-game point of view), it is not unique. This aspirational we-are-the-champions style of imagery was derived from Russian and Chinese Communist social realism according to its conceptualist Sir Richard Taylor and has cousins wherever sport dips its boot into art. Drive three hours out of Copenhagen to the small town of Silkeborg and there, in front of a neat brick building, is the lookalike arm to Weta’s bronze blokes in Wellington. It’s a small world after all.
Images: Left, terrible rugby arm sculpture in Silkeborg. Right Weta sculpture for World Cup (detail)
