A hot-air balloon, commissioned to mark the centenary of Canberra, lifted off to mixed reviews. The Australian capital’s latest piece of public art has been likened to a whale with 10 breasts, or a tumour-ridden fish. The Skywhale—twice the size of a standard balloon, but capable of carrying only two passengers—was made in Britain, and cost taxpayers 170,000 Australian dollars.
One tweet lambasted it as a “pretentious folly”, while another bemoaned the oddity of sculptor Patricia Piccinini’s creation. “My question is: what if evolution went a different way; and instead of going back into the sea, from which they came originally, they went into the air – and we evolved a nature that could fly instead of swim,” Piccinini told national broadcaster ABC. “I think it’s confounding for people because they don’t know what the creature is. And also, they don’t know if it’s an artwork – or even what it’s trying to do.” As mammals, whales breast-feed their young, she pointed out.
Robyn Archer, Creative Director of the Centenary of Canberra events, defended the choice of something so arcane over something more easily recognizable. “Many special-shape balloons have started to replicate characters or animals, but they are mostly caricatures and in the realm of kitsch, rather than art,”
she said.
Read More...