Fall guy

Big has always been…um…big on OTN. When we saw that this jumbo-sized (36 meters high) statue of Mao was being built in China last year with a price tag of just under $700,000, of course we tagged it for a post. How quickly things change. No sooner was the major Mao finished than it was internationally mocked so that just weeks later, mumbling about ‘lack of registration and approval’, local officials had the golden giant taken down.

The giant-statue-of-me business is a tough one. As a rule of thumb, the more tyrannical you are as a leader, the better your chances of ending up nose down in the mud. And usually with the added indignity of a mocking crowd to celebrate your fall. The International Business Times did a useful round-up of the fallen recently, you can see it here.

Big blow

So what’s happened to that giant inflatable duck sculpture? you all ask, well a few of you did … ok it was N (thanks N). Since our last report of it puddling out in Hong Kong Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s much loved sculpture has been all over the place and was last sighted floating on a river in China's Guizhou province. But last week an intense storm with heavy rain ripped the yellow one from its moorings and swept it away. To date no one knows where it has gone beyond 'somewhere down river'. A duck double is on the way.
Images: top, the rubber duck is welcomed in China and bottom deflation in Hong Kong

Big bird

Like the animal artist line up there seems to be no end to the out pouring of giant sculptures in general of animals specifically or in this case bird life. This 15 meter long parrot (a Norwegian blue) was made by Dave Crosswell, Iain Prendergast and Toby Crowther as a commission work to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Dead parrot sketch by Monty Python.
Images: The Norwegian blue being installed

Bigger

OTN’s relentless promotion of giant art objects has been joined by a book on the subject. Overs!ze: mega art & installations features many of the OTN finds including that giant rabbit, mighty Marilyn Monroe and the damn big duck. It also includes New Zealander Fletcher Vaughan’s giant house of cards. You can buy a copy here.

Images: top the book of the obsession and bottom Fletcher's house of cards

The duck Christo problem

When Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s inflatable sculpture Rubber duck was reduced to a puddle in Hong Kong harbour, it gave OTN the opportunity to combine two favoured themes - the big and the lookalike.  Hofman has created a number of his 15-meter ducks. One was recently floating in Sydney harbour and is now in storage waiting for a return gig next summer. As the Hong Kong Duck is down for maintenance we can match it up with Christo’s 1983 Biscayne Bay installation Surrounded islands. Hofman also attracted OTN ‘s attention when he made not one but two giant rabbit sculptures.

Images: Top left, Rubber duck deflated in Hong Kong and right, one of Christo’s Surrounded islands. Bottom, the Hofman duck in Sydney

"All I'm asking you for when you walk out the door is to be my baby, baby"

Babies are big in sculpture, especially if you are Marc Quinn. The YBA has just installed his floating baby in Singapore and for anyone who dreams of having an über infant floating above them, that’s the place to be. And in NZ we’re not dropping behind on the big baby boom. Christchurch of course had Ron Mueck’s Big Baby front and centre in their crowd-pulling exhibition. In fact Mueck has done a range of baby sculptures but, you will be pleased to hear, Christchurch scored the biggest one. So here’s a range of what’s around if you’ve a mind to do the big baby tour anytime soon.

Images: the Marc Quinn baby that has been recently installed in Singapore, random giant red baby, Nina Levy’s baby sculpture at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Burning Man baby on the way home, Tank baby somewhere in China, big bronze babies by David Černý in Prague, Max Streicher, blow-up babies in Canada, Ron Mueck’s Big baby and big talking Big Baby in Spain

Never mind the quality

Our local plant shop (left) does its bit to help Michelangelo’s David to man up.

Mightier than the pen is

Another mash up of OTN favourites this time lookalikes and giant outdoor sculptures. On the left at just over 20 meters high the proposed sculpture Verity by Damien Hirst that is being installed at Ilfracombe in North Devon this week and on the right Mother Russia a Hirst belittling 52 meters high on Mamaev Hill in Volgograd

That’s big as in big

In our quest to seek out the biggest public sculptures in the world we have finally hit the mother lode. It’s a land work in the UK depicting a woman so big it would take a very long time to walk right round her. From the air, from the ground, what ever way you look at it, the work is big. Big head, big arms, big legs and big all the other bits. You want statistics, here are statistics. 34 meters high, 400 meters long (top to tail measurement) and 1.5 million tonnes of earth (actually it’s not earth so much as slag tailings from a nearby coal mining operation that had to be cleaned up). The whole deal is the work of Charles Jenks, the American architectural theorist and landscape architect. It’s due to be finished next year.

Biggest

The giant bronze warrior guy might like to consider this record making brush (biggest in the world) next time he gets a mural painting commission. It’s 365 cms long, weighs in at 52 kilos and stripped 200 horses of their tails. No Max, no.

If it’s bigger than a carrot, clap your hands

Big On Wednesday is the theme. This 8-meter high bronze Maori Warrior is being proposed for the mid North Island town of Ngaruawahia. Sadly the proposed statue comes in a meter short of the Ohakune carrot, but it is claimed to be up for “the biggest bronze statue in the Western world” title.

Three years in the planning the idea has sprung from the mind of sculptor Denis Hall of Wellington (a natural birthplace for this sort of thing). Unfortunately, in his rush to represent Maori, Hall forget to mention it to any of them. “By the way, that big bronze thing over there, it’s you. No… really.” Still, now the warrior is out of the bag, Hall has agreed to have discussions with Tainui. At the moment he's in China searching out artisans who can make his dream a reality. You can check out the reality of other Hall works here on his web site which includes his mural for Wellington restaurant The Green Parrot.
Image: The Dompost sizes up Hall’s concept

Big Ears

“He won’t be told, but he’s easily led.”

Australian art dealer talking about an NZ collector