Posts Tagged ‘sculpture’

Not many cities can rival Buenos Aires for public art in the streets. From huge graffiti murals to some of the most recognisable sculptures in the world, Buenos Aires really does have it all. One of the jewels in the public art crown, missed by many tourists, yet a stone’s throw from Recoleta Cemetery is the Floralis Generica.

Designed by Argentina architect Eduardo Catalano (famous for the Catalano House and the US Embassy in Buenos Aires – possibly the ugliest building in the city), the Floralis Generica was created in 2002 from stainless steel by aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

Catalano conceived it as a kinetic sculpture and the flower opens in the morning and closes at night when the central stamen emit an eerie blue glow. At least it’s supposed to. The mechanism has been broken for the last few months and the flower is forever open – and Lockheed Martin no longer operate in Argentina so there is apparently no way of fixing it.

It’s one of the most recognisable sculptures in the world, and only 22 casts were made from the original mould. Of those, only one is in South America, sitting in Plaza de Congreso in front of the National Congress Building.

However, in a sad reflection of what happens here if it ain’t fenced off, Rodin’s Thinker recently got a new, temporary, colour.

I saw it on a tour a few weeks ago, snapped the above pic, and within 2 days it was scrubbed clean – impressively fast for this city where graffiti scrawled on the main Cathedral is often left for weeks on end. However, according to this article, in their haste to blast the pink off with water, the city Government may have caused irreversible damage to the sculpture and its original patination. Nice try…

Fernando Botero is a major force in Colombian artistic circles and his sculptures can be spotted in many cities in Colombia and around the world. I’ve done a little write up of some of the ones I spotted whilst there over on Medellin Living.