Ice Bear Melting away in Copenhagen Square

What an impactful statement, having a life size Ice Sculpture of a polar bear melting in Copenhagen during the Unit Nations Climate Change Conference to showcase the melting of the polar ice caps.

Created by sculptor Mark Coreth for the Ice Bear Project, the scultpure will be located in Copenhagen’s Nytorv square on 5th December. Over 10 days it will melt away leaving behind a bronze polar bear skeleton held within the ice, a pool of water and a powerful message about the environment. Watch videos of Mark at work on the sculpture.

At 1.8 metres high the ice bear is exactly the same in height as the average thickness of the floating sea ice in the Arctic Ocean measured during the Catlin Arctic Survey earlier this year. Scientists have observed that ice under 2 metres thick is almost certainly too thin to survive the summer melting season.
The Ice Bears will hopefully go on tour to other cities including Bears in Squares for the centres of Copenhagen, Oslo, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Moscow, New York, Toronto, Tokyo, Beijing and Sydney!!! Please, Please, Please come!!!!!!!

Fluffy Life Size Sheep Sculpture

While I am on the topic of sculpture, I have to add a link to this post on apartment therapy about the Lalanne sheep. Crazy. Who would put a life size sheep in their home? I can maybe understand as a foot stool, but I'm not so sure. Personally I wouldn't recommend it, but maybe if you lived in country nsw??

Sculpture By the Sea Inspiration

I battled the crowds and made it to Sculpture by the Sea this weekend, my personal favourite being Morpheus, a kinetic sculpture by the very clever kiwi artist Phil Price:

It inspired me to write my first blog post on sculpture in the home. All too often we buy paintings to liven up a room, but there is nothing like a little bit of 3D to add new dimension to a space. The main problem is that sculptures typically don't come cheap. So where is the best place to buy them?

Looking at the price tags on the weekend, the cheapest sculpture you would want to buy for your home started around the $1500 mark, but these were pretty small so depending on your room they would not make a huge statement. I think it you are going to spend good money on artworks you want it to make an impact. The winning sculpture by May Barry was certainly eye popping in term of size and would look amazing in the right location, probably a commercial building, along with a commercial price tag of around  $130,000.

So I started thinking, what happens to all these sculptures that don't sell? Sculpture by the Sea is not the only exhibition or art prize. There are a whole bevvy of community run sculpture awards and exhibitions, just check the Sculpture Society's website for more details.

There are also amateur sculpture classes held in many community colledges around Australia which run annual exhibition of students work. Visit the Tom Bass Sculpture School in Erskinville Sydney which incidentally is running its 36th student exhibition on the 13th December 2009.

But the best place I know to buy affordable sculptures and ornaments for the home is in Bali. On a recent trip I was over-whelmed at the quality of home products available. Sure, there are the typical street sellers of sandstone, limestone and clay sculptures (which to be honest for $100 or so make a fabulous garden ornament)

or there is the more sophisticated Upnormal stainless steel sculptures in Seminyak. Wow, are these sculptures unusual. They don't come cheap, but they certainly make an impact.

So my tip? When you next plan a holiday to Bali, make sure you pick up a few sculptures. As long as you ship more than 1 cubic metre, its pretty affordable and you will end up with something that looks fabulous. But if you can't make it to Bali, check out the various local artists around town and support the community.