Saturday, August 27, 2011 1:38:15 AM
sculpture, Canada, art
Not that one. (television personality Art Linkletter, 1912-2010)
The McMichael Collection of Canadian Art, in Kleinburg ON
The McMichael features a very large collection of the works of the Group of Seven, including several masterpieces by Lawren Harris (my fave):
(Mt. Lefroy, near Banff Alberta, 1930)
The McMichael, located in the northwest suburbs of Toronto, has a nice sculpture garden with nine monumental bronzes by the artist Ivan Eyre (b. 1935)
"Lightmare" - a boy (?) and his three-legged horse, by Cynthia Short (1949- ); at the Donald Forster Sculpture Park at the University of Guelph:
Aesthetic bust of Shakespeare, by Cleeve Horne (1912-1998), in Stratford:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 2:50:41 AM
public art, sculpture, London
Well-known Anish Kapoor has won the competition to design an Olympic Tower for the 2012 games to be held in London. Suitably apocalyptic, perhaps? I confess that the first time I saw the rendering, I thought it was some massive industrial ruin. Or maybe a steel roller coaster that has been twisted into a pretzel by Superman.
It's designed to be England's largest piece of public art. It incorporates the five Olympic Rings, which you can see if you look really hard. There will be two viewing platforms, the structure will reach a height of some 130 meters, and it dominate the skyline for miles in every direction. It is said to be in some ways London's "version" or response to the Eiffel Tower - and will officially be called the ArcelorMittal Orbit, named after a major international Steel Company and its owner Lakshmi Mittal. (Mittal is providing most of the funds for its construction.)
It reminds me of London's Millenium Dome, but that's just my $0.02 worth. Of course, the Eiffel Tower was regarded as an ugly disgrace after it was unveiled, too.
Kapoor admits that one of his inspirations for his tower's design was the Biblical parable of the Tower of Babel. Hmmm. Not a very happy precedent, you could say.
If the Orbit is actually built, I'm sure that Londoners will give it their own name. Kapoor is also responsible for the famous "Cloud Gate" sculpture in Chicago, which is a design that I like. But Kapoor has expressed his dissatisfaction that Chicago people have taken to calling his work "the Bean" - a name which he doesn't approve of. Too bad, I say - the public taking "ownership" is what public art is all about.
My Opera
