Tag Archives: art

World of WearableArt: part 2

Posted on by
2

Continuing our circuit of the World of WearableArt Museum, we entered the Transform Section. Designers were challenged to create a work that changes in form, nature and appearance. I only captured two of the five pieces, they don’t translate too well to static visuals. Meg Latham (NZ) was inspired by the paper dress-up dolls she played with as a child. Using polyethylene, canvas and acrylic paint for her version of Dress Up Dolls, the models change costumes as if turning pages of a book.

Tara Morelos, Ahmad Mollahassani and Nelia Justo (Australia) have employed electronics, along with acrylic, cardboard and fabric for their homage to Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. They describe Infini-D as, ‘a meditation on geometry, dimensionality and cinematic post-modern gothic’.

The Aotearoa Section draws on the deep sense of place New Zealanders have and celebrates who they are as people and what makes them proud. Ocean beauty comes to life with Sacha Mail’s (NZ) Fatal Attraction. 30,421 hand-dyed cable ties and foam remind us to protect it before it turns to plastic pollution.

Dylan Mulder (NZ) combined 100% merino wool and 3D-printed jewellery to merge Artificial Intelligence and Māori design. He claims the garment, Natural Progression, intuitively designed itself.

Te Kotuku Rerenga Tahi is a Māori whakatauki or proverb, which means ‘a white heron’s flight is seen but once’ and is indicates a very special and rare event. Jenny Sutton (NZ) used paper, plastic milk bottles and weed matting to depict the lovely spirit-like bird.

The Crux and the Long White Cloud marries the Southern Cross in the heavens with the anthem of New Zealand. Autumn Minnear (NZ) chose gold, wood, wool and harakeke (flax) to complement the oil on linen images.

Stephanie Cossens (NZ) has honoured the New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat, Pekapeka-Tou-Poto, using ceramics, faux fur, Dacron and aluminium.

Fabric, plastic and elastic have amalgamated to form Erica Gray’s (Australia) Echinoderm, a monochromatic representation of the colourful sea creatures.

The title says it all, Our History? It’s Complicated… Lynne Dunphy (NZ) worked with woollen blankets, calico, silk and brass to share the message that there is more to Aotearoa than blankets and guns.

Lisa Vanin’s (NZ) depiction of Kaitiaki, a Māori term for a guardian or protector of the environment, is an understated combination of bamboo and copper.

An interesting conglomeration of tulle, rattan, shells and modelling clay make up the intricacies of Shelley Scott’s (NZ) JAFA (Just Another Fabulous Aucklander).

The colour white (yes, I know, there is some controversy as to whether it is actually a colour) is often associated with peace, light, love and purity. In some parts of the world it can represent death and mourning. The White Section incorporates the entire spectrum of emotions in spectacular fashion.

Renee Louie (NZ) has shaped PVC pipe, fabric and nylon string to create Symbiosis, her message that, ‘Alone they are great but they are even better together.’

Intricately woven aluminium wire and white wire make up Dreamcatcher, a fairy of the night by Tsao Chien-Yi and Lu Pei-Hsin (Taiwan).

‘The incarnation of an ethereal soul, protected by many different, textured layers’, describes Integumentum. Marine Arnoul (France) used 3D-mesh, spandex, foam and 3D-printed glasses to achieve the image.

A sterile white armour attempts to fight disease, but it is flawed. Hanna Smith (Australia) shaped Faulty Armour from Tyvek, cork and surgical masks.

This gorgeous garment by Galina Mihaleva (Singapore) is fabricated from polyester, plastic and sequins. Losing Touch? represents the uncertainties facing nature.

On a similar theme, Erica Gray (Australia) has used plastic and fabric for Face Coral, reflecting the underwater species stripped of vibrancy and colour.

Although many of the pieces on display are stretching the concept of ‘wearable’, I feel this would be particularly challenging. Ruth Arkless (NZ) has used cotton, tulle, mesh and sequins to create Cultural Peak, expressing the strength of the country’s heritage, casting large shadows and reaching new heights.

Taking ‘wearable’ to the extreme, the Bizarre Bra Section showcases some outrageous examples that have been entered in the competition over the years.

Paying homage to a typical Kiwi breakfast, Fried Eggs made from rubber adorn toast formed with painted sponges. Kelsey Roderick and Rhys Richards (NZ) cleverly added straps constructed from cutlery.

The oldest recorded ‘National Flower’, the Scottish thistle, inspired Lyndal Linton’s (NZ) EdinBra.

A less sedate, carnivorous tropical plant motivated Leon Vaz and Noel Braganza (India) for their colourful Venus Fly Trap.

Alexa Cach, Miodrag Guberinic and Corey Gomes (USA) combined hand-painted Cicadas, brass leaves, Italian leather, faceted crystals, epoxy and wire for their golden Renewal entry.

Stainless steel was the material of choice for the arachnoid creation, Miss Muffet, by Bikramjit Bhowmick and Sangeeta Patra (India).

Mark Crocker (NZ) found a use for teapots, bicycle parts, egg cups, kitchen utensils, leather belts, fabric and rivets for his painfully titled Grinder Bra.

Equally uncomfortable is Jantar Mantar by Khadimul Islam (India). I would think those parts made of iron, plastic and reflective sheets would pinch a bit.

Sebastian Denize (NZ) created Re-Decked entirely from recycled skateboards.

I’m not convinced that Tanya Marriott’s A Pair of Spitfires would really take off.

Denise Laurie (NZ) had to learn taxidermy to present Lunar Duo. A tribute to the possum, the unfortunate pair of road kill have been joined together with rubber from a car tyre.

World of WearableArt: part 1

Posted on by
6

While staying in Nelson, we relished the opportunity to visit the World of WearableArt (WOW) museum. Local sculptor, Dame Suzie Moncrieff, instigated the World of WearableArt as a means of promoting a local co-operative art gallery; by taking art off the wall and displaying it on the moving body. Each year, the competition culminates with a spectacular show where the works are brought to life on stage. Since the inaugural show in 1987, the competition now attracts entrants from around the world. The museum dishes up a visual feast of which I will share a tasty portion.

The adventure begins just after the ticket counter, with the vibrant colours of Escaped Pods delivering a promise of things to come. Lynn Christiansen (USA) used felt and fabric for her depiction of Castilleja seed pods that have escaped captivity at the seed bank to live for today.

The displays are separated into different sections with each representing a theme. The Open Section is unique in that it has no thematic boundaries, giving designers complete freedom to create, limited only by their imagination.

Synthetic scraps, Fimo (a clay developed in the mid-20th century that could be hardened in the oven) and floor insulation were used by Daniella Sasvári and Aaron La Roche (NZ) to create the monarchial Regnum Dei.

Peeling back the layers to reveal the real you, Mary Turner’s (NZ) Appeeling is made from Worbla (a thermoplastic resin), foam, fabric and paint.

Striking and hypnotic, the changing patterns and colours of Collide-o-Scope were composed from neon acrylic, lycra, aluminium and Worbla by Vicky Robertson (NZ).

Fabrics, hand-painted skulls and skeletons were used by Sheela Stoneman (NZ) for Memento Mori to illustrate that life is short, death is long, so we need to live life to the fullest while we can.

‘Nature, the hero warrior, transfigures forsaken giants of industry into works of inspiring beauty’. Jill Benson (NZ) used PVC foam board, brass and cotton to construct Derelict Beauty.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was obviously the inspiration for Carolyn Gibson’s (NZ) Rock Me Amadeus. Few materials are more fitting than velvet, leather, pearls and lace for a man who declared that love is the soul of genius.

Golf bags, clubs, tees and vinyl were used by Leanne Day (NZ) to relate the overwhelming feeling of having more ideas than time with Engolfed.

The Mythology Section features fantastical designs influenced by dark tales from other dimensions; monsters and creatures, gods and goddesses. Banshee of the Bike Lane shrieks her mourning of the senseless deaths of fallen cyclists. This howling spectre is assembled from bicycle inner tubes, chains, cogs and a wheel by Grace DuVal (USA).

The story of the thread of life – the beginning, middle and end – is told through shape and colour by Tina Hutchison-Thomas (NZ). Velvet, hand-dyed chiffon and embroidery were used to create the garments of The Moirai – the Shape of Us.

Feathers, silk taffeta, paint and crystals combine in the colourful Eden by Ian Bernhard (NZ), a portrayal of a creature of paradise, lost.

Xu Ran’s (China) 3D printed resin, nylon, rope and plastic, Feathers of the Roc, tells the story of giant fish that grow wings and turn into big birds to pursue freedom.

Based on the ancient theory of female hysteria, Louise Byford (UK) has melded latex sheeting, liquid latex and leather to present The Wandering Womb.

Although Nyx, goddess of the night, has the appearance of a multitude of feathers, it was actually created with plastic bags, metal wire and polyester by Dinh Hai Yen (Singapore).

A fascinating fusion of patent leather, beads and non-woven cloth form the convolutions of Chang-Yi-Wei’s (Taiwan) Soul Guardian, the god who guards the soul.

Wrath of Medusa was inspired by the Greek mythological creature Medusa, as sculpted by Italian artist Bernini. Edyta Jermacz (Poland) opted for vinyl latex, neoprene, jacquard and polypropylene padding for her concept.

Experimental, radical and unorthodox, the Avant-garde Section challenges designers to defy the boundaries of fashion and rebel against the norm.

Buddhist altar cloths and kimono obi lining merge to form Shinka (‘Evolution’ in Japanese). Christopher Davis (NZ) poses the question, ‘in a world of change and rapid evolution, will tradition still remain?’

With the stunning use of steel, silk and silk georgette, Thingamla Adrianne Keishing (India) conceived Oracles of Life, influenced by the aquatic world, especially the rhinopias and coral reefs.

The Lady Warrior embodies the toughest warriors in life – women – in their role of daughter, wife and mother. Rinaldy Yunardi (Indonesia) has brought his vision to life using metal and recycled paper.

Edyta Jermacz (Poland) features once again in this section, using latex, neoprene, fringing and buckles to produce Big Lips, inspired by a range of romantic emotions: desire, obsession, sex, love, intensity.

Silk, foil, foam and wire form the bold concept by Anna von Hartitzsch (UK), Clotho – the Goddess of Fate. According to Greek mythology, the youngest of the three Fates spins the threads of human life.

Baroque style and religion inspired Lam Hoi Man Kinki (Hong Kong) to create Holy Light using non-woven fabric, metal and satin.

Silk satin, taffeta and stone beads adorn Joan, Ian Bernhard’s (NZ) ‘armoured figure in liquid splendour’.

This armour is an interpretation of ‘power dressing’ and the illusory power of the stiletto. Louise Dyhrfort (UK) chose vegetable-tanned leather and plastic heels for Walk All Over Me.

Shantanu Singh (India) surmises, ‘we can’t even imagine the world or universe without black’. Velvet, lycra, crepe, pleated taffeta and cords compose Black – an Inner Strength.

The faceless, menacing Dearth Exterm represents a strong, powerful female version of the Knave of Hearts. Nicola Rule (NSW) has combined leather and taffeta for her mysterious character.

With a few more sections to share, I am planning a second instalment. Stay tuned…..

Darwin Street Art – part two

Posted on by
4

Having run out of time on our first reconnaissance, we returned a few days later to continue our discovery of the artistic embellishments adorning the lanes of Darwin. As well as the annual Darwin Street Art Festival, the ‘Art to Street’ project in July 2019 invited local and emerging artists to create murals on seven public spaces across Darwin. Two of these colour the walls of West Lane Car Park.

Talented mural artist Lara Connor collaborated with local school student Caleb Schatz (aka Mr Calebdude) to fill the space with subtle colour and quirky characters.

Back to the festival…..a buffalo skull was the inspiration for Darwin contemporary artist Jimmy B4mble’s contribution, Rukus in 2019.

A little further down the lane, the enormous Gouldian Finch was painted for the inaugural festival in 2017 on a wall at the rear of the Darwin Hilton. Melbourne artist James Beattie (aka Jimmy Dvate) teamed with local Jesse Bell to present the three colour variations of the birds; the most common black-faced, the lesser known red-faced and the very rare yellow-faced. There are now fewer than 2500 Gouldian finch in the wild, their existence threatened by changing fire practices that reduce the availability of food and the aviary trade that saw thousands of birds trapped until it was banned in 1981.

With a career spanning four decades, celebrated Darwin artist Colin Holt contributed a vibrant treescape in 2020.

Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri artist Jason Lee (aka Choplee) painted the seven main seasons of the Gulumoerrgin (Larrakia) calendar in 2018: Dalirrgang (build-up, September to October) – flying fox, cocky apple and cycad nuts; Balnba (rainy season, November to December) – long bums, black plum and bush potatoes; Dalay (monsoon season, January to March) – crocodile laying eggs and big red apple fruiting; Mayilema (March to April) – dragonflies and bush cherry; Damibila (April to June) – black cockatoo and bush peanut; Dinidjanggama (heavy dew time, June to August) – Dugong and water lillies; Gurrulwa (big wind time, July to September) – stingray and yellow kapok.

There is no denying the overwhelming talent on display throughout this exposition and I was absolutely boggled by the image that emerged from this inconspicuous nook.

Portuguese artist, Odeith, has a special interest in perspective and shading, calling his style “sombre 3D”. On his first trip to Darwin in 2019, he wanted to create a truly Australian artwork, the spectacular result being a kangaroo standing atop a transit van.

Sistagirls are transgender Aboriginal Australians traditionally known in the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin, as yimpininni. Melburnian artist, Kaff-eine, met with the sistagirls and, in 2018 painted an elegant portrait of Shaniquá to celebrate the strength, power, character & beauty of the sistagirl community.

Also in 2018, Melbourne-based artist, George Rose, drew on her appreciation of the Australian landscape for her colourful work featuring Sturt Desert rose, Hibiscus brennanii and Nymphaea violacea.

Born and raised in Darwin, Larrakia man Shaun Lee (aka Hafleg) combined traditional and contemporary designs to create a beautiful turtle and jellyfish mural in 2018.

Nearby, he collaborated with Trent Lee two years later on a stunning piece featuring barramundi.

Known as the ‘build up’ in the Northern Territory, the weather cycle where heat and humidity increase leads up to the wet season. Build Up/Melt Down by local artist Vincent Poke in 2018 is a depiction of what it is like to live through this experience in the Top End.

In 2017, NT artist Polly Johnstone completed a mural, For the Love of Reading, featuring the image of Darwin local Artia Ratahi. She returned the following year and once again chose Artia, with her Indigenous and Maori heritage, to represent the diverse backgrounds of the community. The vibrant colours reflect the Top End soil, the crystal blue waters and the pinks and purples of the sunsets.

The wall of Monsoons nightclub provided the canvas for a collaboration between Melburnian Cam Scale and NT artist Les Huddleston in 2017. The painting, entitled Monsoon, represents the new life brought to the billabongs after monsoonal rains. Brolgas descend on the billabongs to breed and feed on turtles and fish, depicted swirling amongst the water plants at the feet of the dancing brolgas.

Our connection to animals and the need to preserve our wildlife and their habitats inspired a striking piece by Melbourne- based Tayla Broekman in 2019. The White-Bellied mangrove snake is found in the mangroves of northern Australia, the bright colours are enhanced by the dark background illustrating the sky and vast, flat landscape of the NT desert.

I don’t think these planter boxes are part of the festival but they certainly brighten up the streetscape.

The Street Art Festival has now expanded from the CBD all the way to Alice Spring with more than 18 new murals painted in 2021. I might need a bit more time on my next visit.

Darwin Street Art – part one

Posted on by
4

There are so many great reasons to visit Darwin, especially in the dry season. During my visit last year, I discovered another. The Darwin Street Art Festival invites local, national and international artists to transform the streets and laneways of the CBD into a giant art gallery. Eight murals were painted in the  first year, 2017, followed by sixteen in 2018. A further fifteen were added each year in 2019 and 2020. We embarked on a wondrous voyage of discovery one morning, not realising the magnitude of the undertaking. Our introduction was a colourful graphic work by Melburnian urban artist Andrew Bourke (more about him later).

Riece Ranson started as a graffiti writer in London before moving on to murals. He has paid homage to his love of the coastline and fishing in the Northern Territory with his painting of a Queensland Groper.

Belgian artist, Vexx, incorporated his signature colourful ‘doodles’ to put his own twist on Darwin’s deadly animal, the crocodile.

Beneath the crocodile, in 2020 Northern Territory based visual artist, Polly Johnstone (Miss Polly), raised the question of what the future will bring.

Vibrant graphics burst forth from drab walls and a more subtle illustration emerged from the pavement.

Roller doors provided an alternative canvas for a nature-inspired triptych.

Saltwater Home was a collaboration between Sydneysider Tim De Haan (Phibs) and Darwin-born Larrakia man, Shaun Lee (Hafleg) in 2017. Both men grew up by the ocean and have blended elements of saltwater life with a Larrakia design presented in stunning colours of the outback .

Although not part of the Street Art Festival, some quirky animation graced the walls of the Babylon Bar at the Austin Lane end of Air Raid Arcade.

At the other end of the arcade on Cavenagh Street, the recently opened Birth of Venus Bar was similarly embellished.

Melburnian Mike Maka’s (Makatron) 2017 creation, Poppies for the People, was inspired by the location adjacent to the Darwin RSL Club. The mural links and contrasts the iconic red poppies of the World War I battlefield of France to the green of the tropical vegetation in the Top End.

Explorer John McDouall Stuart was the subject of local NT artist Ryan Medlicott’s portrait in 2018.

House of Darwin is a clothing company that reinvests its profits into social programs in remote Indigenous communities. Graphic designer and illustrator Liam Milner (Luna Tunes) painted a huge building in support of the project in 2019.

Native flora of the Northern Territory feature in the vibrant 2019 work by self-taught local artist, Jason Lee.

Once an illegal graffiti artist in New York, ELLE created a collage style painting in 2018 to tell the history of Darwin. The central image of an Aboriginal woman’s face has one Chinese eye, representing the influx of Chinese during the Goldrush. ELLE was fascinated by the accounts of lightning starting fires in the bush and the Black Kite picking up twigs from the fire and dropping them to spread the fires further in order to burn out food. She has used this creature as well as local flora to symbolise resilience, beauty, strength and pride.

Phibs, once again, contributed in 2018 with an abstract impression of the diverse flora and fauna found in the Northern Territory using a colour palette as seen in Darwin sunsets.

Tom Gerrard (Aeon) has a passion for finding shapes that shape a city and in 2017, the Melbourne-based artist teamed up with locals David Collins and Les Huddleston to capture some of the Top End’s most iconic structures. Gerrard has used his distinctive minimalist colour palette of red, black and white for the work entitled Darwin.

In 2018, Andrew Bourke combined his talents with NT artist Jesse Bell to honour the memory of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. The talented Aboriginal musician passed away in July 2017 and, with blessings from his family, the artists have immortalised his image with the lyrics from his song Baru (The Saltwater Crocodile) in the background.

The following year, a piece of traditional Aboriginal design by Nyanpanyapa (Wendy) Yunupingu accompanied her late brother, Gurrumul.

On the opposite wall of the car park are two more magnificent pieces that complement each other. Multidimensional Man, painted by Melburnian Peter Seaton (CTO) in 2018, is a portrait of Hilton Garnarradj an Aboriginal guide from Arnhem Land.

A year later, Brisbane based artist Russell Orrie Fenn (Sofles) added the Interdimensional Space Crab alongside using the same tones as the Aboriginal man.

Polly Johnstone’s 2017 work, For the Love of Reading, features an image of Darwin local Artia Ratahi, representing the diverse culture of the community. The background is inspired by the colours of the Top End from the soil and crystal blue waters to the pinks and purples of the sunsets.

Another Darwin resident, Emma Murphy, combined fashion and nature for her bold creation in 2019. Models faces morph into birds, inspired by the Kookaburra, Hooded Parrot and the Rainbow Bee-eater bird.

Ryan Medlicott’s 2019 mural depicts the rare Oenpelli Python, the longest snake in the NT found only in the sandstone massif of western Arnhem Land.

With a lunch date looming, we ran out of time to complete our mission and returned a few days later but that will be another post. I could find no information on these last two paintings except the second one is titled Winner.

artists of Il Giardino

Posted on by
2

There are fifty four artists represented at Il Giardino di Daniel Spoerri, a sculpture wonderland set in the Tuscan countryside. I thought we had done a credible job of covering the ground but, on reflection, we only discovered half of them. It doesn’t matter, what we did see was astounding. Eva Aeppli was born in 1925 in Switzerland and, after her studies, moved to Paris. Around 1967, she started concentrating on textile life-size figures, creating sewn heads that refer to the planets. If you look closely, the stitch lines can be seen on the bronze casts of the Astrological Signs group.

The gold faces of The Planets represent the positive aspects of the Moon (in silver), Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, Neptune and Uranus

while the negative aspects, responsible for the sinful facets of human beings, are expressed in A Few Human Weaknesses. From left to right, these are Sloth (Moon), Envy (Mercury), Lust (Venus), Pride (Sun), Wrath (Mars), Gluttony (Jupiter), I seem to have missed Avarice (Saturn). Again, the heads were originally sewn and the texture of the silk fabric can be seen on close inspection.

An attempt to glue the figures rather than sew them wasn’t very successful. Two of the failed pieces were used as scarecrows in Eva’s vegetable garden while others were used for airgun target practice. One of the heads, collapsed and shrivelled, has been cast in bronze and embedded between two branches of an olive tree. Although it seems to be watching the passersby, the empty eye sockets see a world on The Other Side.

The three Greek goddesses of vengeance and retribution, known as the Erinyes or Furies, represent the negative aspects of the so-called invisible planets Neptune, Pluto and Uranus.

Ars Moriendi (Latin for ‘The Art of Dying’) by Italian artist, Giampaolo di Cocco, comprises three sculptures that represent life-size elephant bodies in various stages of decomposition.

Katharina Duwen’s Refuse from the Bronze Age relates to the subject matters that interest her most: traces of the past and relics of civilisation. Various items lie together as if on an illegal dump site, made of bronze they contradict the notion of putrefaction and decay. In the future, this evidence may provide useful information to archaeologists about the everyday lives of a past culture.

Not only is Angelo Maineri a maestro of sculpture, he has been responsible for the care and maintenance of the Giardino since 2016. He has melded bodies of steel and cement, seemingly weightless yet grounded, with the twisting branches of a tree for Chlorophilia – Rooted Life. He describes the work as, “humans, destroying nature, are yet dependent upon it and cannot escape it.”

When Daniel Spoerri was invited to propose a sculpture for the slopes of Vesuvius, he immediately thought of a drawing by his friend, illustrator and satirist, Roland Topor who died in 1997. The crouching woman intently watched a handful of small balls rolling from her lap (I’m not absolutely convinced of this anatomical description). The Vesuvius project was abandoned and Mamma muntagna, the Neapolitans name for their volcano, was sculpted in stone for the garden by Simone d’Angiolo.

A tower of old harrows and ploughs, wedged in amongst each other and screwed together, is titled Monument to Settledness. The artist, Arman, was well known in the sixties for his accumulations of several objects of the same kind such as milk cans, hairslides and bottle caps. These agricultural machines are the insignia of soil management and are stuck, immovable and useless, while the sound of modern agricultural machines can be heard in the surrounding hills.

Amongst the olive trees, sixty geese run in the direction of Seggiano, pursued by three extremely threatening, oversized and masked figures with drums. French artist, Oliver Estoppey has included a boy standing off to the side holding a goose under his arm, perhaps protecting the bird from the Day of Wrath.

An interesting figure that appears like a piece of wood is, in fact, bronze and is carefully attached to the wall of the villa. The Pisser served as an artist shower during a sculptors’ symposium in Freiburg in 1977 and Daniel Spoerri retrieved it from storage for the Giardino with artist Alfonso Hüppi’s consent. The refreshing stream of water usually emitted from the woman was absent on this day.

A connecting link between the distant past and modernity is seen in Two Steel Lenses, One Leaning Tower and Five Geode. The installation, by Jürgen Knubben, consists of two lens-shaped steel constructions lying next to slate stones of similar shape and size, known as geodes, that are around 180 million years old. The leaning tower resembles the obelisks used in Egypt around 2000 BC as cultic stones to honour the sun god.

Daniel Spoerri wanted an iron sculpture by his Swiss friend, Bernhard Luginbühl for the Giardino. Peasant Monument comprises ploughs and parts of agricultural machines, symbols of power, and the exaggerated verticality is a symbol of fertility.

Over the course of a year, Josef Pleier visited the Giardino several times to make measurements and calculations regarding different positions of the sun. The holes in his basalt column, Sunstone, direct the gaze to certain points on the horizon where the rising or setting sun can be seen on the day of the winter solstice (21st December), the equinox (23rd September and 21st March) and the summer solstice (21st June). The opening at the top is the point of true midday when the sun is at its zenith in the sky (and it’s not 12 noon).

Pavel Schmidt has an interest in the phenomenon of kitsch, in particular replicas of popular sculptures. Do Not Open Before the Train Has Halted (Venus and David Between the Buffers) features kitsch figures of Michelangelo’s David and Botticelli’s Venus that he blew up and then glued the fragments together. They have been placed on railway buffers arranged in the form of a cross, gazing in opposite directions.

Austrian artist Erwin Wurm became famous for a series of One Minute Sculptures where he poses people in unexpected relationships with everyday objects. Sewn together at the waistband, the pant legs of Doppelhose seem to be fidgeting in the air.

The Gordian Knot is a legend associated with Alexander the Great, the untying of an impossibly tangled knot often used as a metaphor to describe an intractable problem. German artist Till Augustin created a series of sculptures with this title, two of which are presented atop pillars each side of the path. The cables were pressed together under huge pressure and then cut so that the inside of the twisted rope is visible, giving the impression the knot could spring apart at any moment.

In a hollow in the Giardino, elaborate iron constructions topped with reddish-brown, bell-shaped heads reach 4-6 metres into the sky. Luigi Mainolfi’s mushrooms symbolise The Fertile Earth in these towering species.

The bronze figure of Banzai! Banzai! Banzai! was inspired by a small sculpture standing on Ay-O’s desk when Daniel Spoerri visited him in New York. A few grains of rice placed in the boy’s mouth would traverse the short digestive tract and exit from the rear. This impressed and amused Spoerri and he asked Ay-O to produce a life-size version for the Giardino where Banzai! wishes happiness, success and good health. I didn’t realise at the time but for those wishing to see the little fella “in action”, little bags of rice are available at the reception desk.

Roberto Barni’s figures in Continuo are positioned mid-stride on a seesaw in permanent equilibrium. The title is a contrast to the musical term, Continuo, meaning a constant accompaniment provided by the bass instruments. The men are blindfolded, a typical element of Barni’s works, perhaps in order not to disappoint their illusion of progress.

Italian Luciano Ghersi describes himself as a ‘hyper-textile hand-weaver’. The chairs of The Fakirs’ Meeting are woven with barbed wire, a comment that they would be a good seat for the government which, in Italy and elsewhere, should not be able to sit back in comfort.

The Cake Dream, created by Rosa Roedelius using aluminium and clay, is accompanied by a few lines:

What remains is the cake dream

What was or will be, trivial

Floating above the water

Living things grow from it

Standing on a viewing tower taking in the ambience of the landscape, The Visitor by Esther Seidel looks out over the labyrinthine wallpath. But is he really observing it or only seeing images inside his head?

Flying Buttress is one of the many installations by Mauro Staccioli found in public spaces all over the world. Viewed as a fragment of an archway, the large steel construction establishes a link to the motto of the Giardino, Hic Terminus Haeret and to Terminus, the Roman god of boundaries and transition.

Famous ballet dancer, Daniel Nijinski was legendary for his high leaps from a standing position. A photographer captured the moment when, at an advanced age, he leapt unexpectedly for one final time into the air. Artist Non Vital based his sculpture, Daniel Nijinski Superstar, on that photograph and he is appropriately suspended high above the ground.

Yoko Ono is famous for many reasons, one of them being her contribution to art. The first iteration of Play It By Trust was exhibited in 1966 and since then has been represented in various sizes and materials. The all white interactive chessboard functions as a metaphor for the futility of war, eliminating the colour-based opposition of one side versus another. Beyond a series of initial moves, the game is doomed to failure.