Tuesday, August 09, 2016

Get real

Looks like Michael Parekowhai’s Tongue of the dog was an animal sculpture too far for Hamilton. It might speak dog to some people but others prefer to see a more direct animal connection. In a similar spirit the screens have been put round Italian sculptor Mimmo Paladino’s War Horse memorial sculpture Cavalli Acqua and the shotgun called for. Paladino’s effort is to be replaced with a ‘realistic’ bronze horse sniffing a hat. As one of the funders of the horse-and-hat work explained, people who like horses wanted ‘a horse sculpture that actually looked like a horse’. A small paddock with a real horse trotting the perimeter as a memorial to horses is not an option at this stage.

Images: Not a horse, column top to bottom by Mimmo Paladino, Hans Haacke, Alexander Calder, Elmgreen & Dragset and Deborah Butterfield. Now-that’s-what-I-call-a-real-horse column top to bottom, Matt Gauldie for Hamilton’s War Horse Memorial, etc., etc., etc. and Phar Lap by Joanne Sullivan-Gessler