The Singing Sculpture

 

Found a new sculpture/installation in our City Park today. Well - new to me, anyway! But then I have not been passing by that corner of the park for at least five months... 

 

As odd as the thing looks, it sounds even odder. Yes - getting up to closer to it, one can also hear it kind of singing, or humming. 

 

Back home, I tried to seek some info about it, and Google AI obliged. It seems I missed what our local newspaper wrote about it back in early December last year, when it was inaugurated. 

 

It's official title is Currents Cast in Time: Collected Sounds of Borås, and the name of the artist/musician who created it is Jin Mustafa (female, born 1988 in Uppsala, Sweden). The work of art was made specifically for this place. It's made of aluminium and fiberglass, and the sound it gives off is a mix of city sounds recorded along the river. It also lights up from within in the dark - and you're welcome to sit on it and rest for a while, if you like. (I did not, on this occasion.)

 

A variety of this work of art (in the shape of some "singing stones") was first shown at our sculpture biennial in the summer of 2021. But it had to be reconstructed to meet the demands of a more permanent installation. 

 

You can see and and listen to the 2021 version in a blog post of mine from back then:

Smoke, Sticks and the Sound of Stones

 

 

 

Wonderland

 

 

 

Last time I walked through the City Park, around 1½ week ago, the cherry blossom trees there weren't in bloom yet. (They're of a later kind than similar trees growing in other parks closer to where I live.)  Today proved perfect for seeing them in their full glory, though.

The Big Green Rabbit used to stand in another part of the park, but as they're doing some changes in that part now, he's been moved to this spot instead. From this angle, it looks to me as if he's still wondering Why! (There are several benches nearby where people can sit and look at him, though.) 

The official title of the sculpture is Mate Hunting. 
(By Marianne Lindberg de Geer, 2008. )

Regardless of where in the park he stands, he always reminds me of the rabbit in Alice's Wonderland though. (Even though the rabbit in that book isn't green, but white). 

"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!"

The Boy and the Turtle

 

In a playground park close to where I live, there is this statue of a boy balancing on a turtle - looking rather like he's using it as a surfboard. I understand that originally they belonged in a pond with a fountain; but that's long gone - only the statue left. And just now, in the snow, perhaps more accurate to say the boy is using the turtle as "snowboard"! (Brrr. I feel a bit like dressing him up warm...)

I snapped this photo yesterday when walking through that park. When uploading it to my computer today, I did a bit of "online surfing" to see if I could find out more about it. Turns out it was made in 1945 (when this whole housing estate was new), by an artist named Bror Chronander (1880-1964). What inspired the statue I've not been able to find out, though. Its title does not include the word surfing - it's just "The Boy and the Turtle".

It occured to me to also ask Bing Image Creator for "a young boy surfing on a turtle", and below is what I got. One of the four actually comes pretty close to the statue!

 

 

Hello August

This afternoon was more pleasant outside than I expected. I had only intended a short walk but found myself continuing all the way into the town centre and park.

Part of the flower arrangements on one of the bridges. 
Sweet peas in bloom now on the trellises.

A flowerbed in the main square.

A sculpture standing outside one of the major hotels in the city centre. The name of the artist is Lars-Åke Åberg (click on the link to see more of his stone sculptures). This is not a new sculpture and I've probably shown it before, but I think not recently. The collage shows it from opposite sides.

The new stairs in the park have been finished. (I think I showed them under construction earlier in the summer.) I walked up them today (around 30 steps) and found them quite well "balanced" - or whatever the correct terminology to do with stairs may be. (Feeling less steep than they may look.) 

Looking down on plantations on the hillside from the top of those stairs.

The new stairs connect the bridge down below with an older set of stairs leading up to the very top of the park (where there is a miniature golf course, but I did not go all the way up there today).

 

Finishing off with a photo of this construction, which is growing (literally!) increasingly effective in hiding a rather hideous piece of machinery inside (belonging to the indoor swimming hall nearby, I think).

 

Tornado Sculpture / Skywatch Friday

Sculpture 'Tornado' (Borås, Sweden)

This sculpture has been standing near the railway station & Travel Centre for at least 10 years. It has probably appeared on this blog before, even if perhaps not recently. Last week when I happened to be passing by, it caught my camera eye because of how the clouds in the sky seemed to almost rise out of it... It wasn't a particularly windy day though! ;)

 

December 9 - Monday

Red granite sculpture in three parts, Sofiero Palace Park, Helsingborg

This sculpture is in three parts. The ear was lying further away from the other two parts - too far apart for me to catch all three in the same photo, so I made this collage. When I was there, I had no idea what it was supposed to symbolize. I still don't, really - but I managed to find that the artist is a Canadian, George Rammell, and the sculpture (entitled something like "spirit of the tumulus") inspired from old Norse mythology, and the giant Ymer (Ymir). To cut a long story short, the world was created from Ymir's dead body.

December 2 - Monday

Lily of the Valley, sculpture by Klara Kristalova; Falkenberg, Sweden

December 28

What Is Art?

On my first visit to the 2018 International Sculpture Biennial exhibition A Grin Without a Cat at the Borås Art Museum, I somehow managed to miss this huge … thing … on display outside:

Be honest: When seeing this, would your first thought be: “What a great piece of art!” ??

Now tell me what you think:
Is this Art? Rubbish? History worth preserving? Comparable to a piece of the Berlin Wall?

(What they intend to do with it after the art exhibition is over, I don’t know.)

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Weekend Postcard

Postcard from John in England, June 2018

“There was the Cat  again, sitting on the branch of a tree.”
The gilded roundel of the Cheshire Cat featured on the back cover of the original edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, first published by Macmillan & Co Ltd in 1865.

A Grin Without A Cat

“Well, I’ve often seen a cat without a grin, thought Alice; but a grin without a cat! It is the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!”
(Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865)

I suspect that even most people who never read the book are still more or less familiar with this quote. What you may not yet know, though, is that A Cat Without A Grin is also the title of the 2018 International Sculpture Biennial in Borås, Sweden. (But now you know!)

The brochure tells me that the theme was chosen “because of its relation to the surreal, and the interest in nonsense”.

Hmm… In other words: an excuse to mix and display a number of odd art exhibits without taking any responsibility for them to make sense… ; )

The exhibition was opened at the end of May, but it wasn’t until Thursday this week that I found a good opportunity for myself to go and visit the Art Museum, where most of the contributions are displayed this year. Some new or borrowed sculptures are also to be found here and there in the city centre – and some old ones have been temporarily moved to other locations. I made no attempt on this occasion to try and find them all – after all, I have all summer to go looking for them :)

However, walking through the Town Park on my way to the art museum, I happened to notice this new addition to the sculptures there:

It is named Stub or Yggdrasil and is here on loan from another town in the area, for the biennial. The name of the artist is David Myrvold. Yggdrasil is the name of a holy tree (ash tree) in Old Norse mythology – kind of representing the centre of the world, with its branches extending far up into the heavens, and its roots far into the underground. Various kinds of creatures live in or by this tree, and it is also connected to the main god Odin sacrificing himself there. What Myrvold wants to say by showing it as only a stub, I don’t know. But there is a glow within it (from LED lights, I suppose) to suggest there is life in it still… I think the spot to display the sculpture in the park has been well chosen, as it has been “planted” close to two older stone sculptures that also remind of ancient times and unknown mysteries (reminding of old stone monuments like Stonehenge and similar).

Along my way uphill to the art museum from the city centre, I also came across this piece:

This made absolutely no sense to me until I got back home and read the brochure I picked up at the museum. Quoting what the brochure says about the artist, Iman Issa: “Issa takes inspiration from historical works of art and objects and the way they are displayed in contemporary museological context. By creating new and minimalist sculptures with a resemblance to the original artefact and pairing them up with texts describing the object that inspired the new work, new interpretations arise. The presentation mode challenges our memory, our values and the importance we ascribe to language in this context.” (You may have to read that quote more than once – at least I did!)

There were also some photographs by the same artist on display at the museum, pretty much on the same kind of two-faced theme. I took some of them to be paintings, but the brochure says photographs.  I’ll have to go back for a closer look, I think. (There is no entrance fee for this exhibition so I can go as many times as I like.) I only snapped a photo of one that appealed to me because I like the objects as such (books, pens, papers…):

Iman Issa: “Replica For Illustration”, 2018 (C-print)

The biggest work of art on display indoors at the museum was this one:

▲ Seen from the ground floor.
▼ Looking down on it from the floor/balcony above.

La dépossission - Artist: Latifa Echakhch
A collapsed theatre backdrop  painted like the sky.
(”The sky is literally falling down on us”, the brochure says…)

My favourites exhibited at the museum were probably these two, though – playing with light and shadows, and kind of relating to that Yggdrasil stub in the park.

(I don’t find these in the brochure so don’t have the names of the artists)

There were also quite a few works of art in the exhibition that on this occasion did not “speak” to me at all… Remains to be seen if they will if I go back again!

Shadow Shot Sunday 2

The Giant

According to an old legend, the island Visingsö in Läke Vättern was created by a giant named Vist. He and his wife had been to a party in the province of Västergötland, on the western side of the lake. When they were going back home to Småland, on the south-east side of the lake, his wife had problems getting over the lake in just one step. Then Vist picked up a turf of grass, and threw it into the lake, so that his wife could use that as a stepping stone.

The wooden sculpture of the giant (turf in hand) was made in 1969 by the sculptor/painter Calle Örnemark (from Jönköping). The sculpture was restored in 2015, shortly before the artist’s death. He made his sculptures from demolition timber.

Per doing his job again (showing you the size of the giant).

The giant stands in Huskvarna (east of Jönköping) on the south-east shore of Lake Vättern, visible from the motorway. As we knew we wanted to stop and visit him properly, we took a detour on a smaller road to get closer.

Something for All Senses

Here are some photos from the other park that I also visited yesterday, on my way to the Open Air Museum (about 15 minutes walk from there). 

It's been named "Sinnenas Park", meaning "The Park of the Senses", because they tried to include things alluding to all the senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. It was also designed to be easily accessible for those with various handicaps.

 

  

 

I think I have shown this sculpture on the blog before, a few years ago. Its name - Viskarn - means "the whisperer", but I suppose it may also be inspired by and meant to allude to the name of the river flowing through our town - Viskan. (It's hard to hear the difference when spoken!) What intrigues me even more, though, is that the creature reminds me so much of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies (who was always whispering and hissing to himself as well). But as you can see on the sign, this sculpture was created in 1999 - and the first of those films wasn't released until 2001... (The books of course were written long before that. But still...) 

Linking to Through My Lens 101

Bold Colours

This rock near the railway station, covered with ivy, always looks magnificent in autumn. (Photos taken a couple a weeks ago, in late September.)

But what on earth is going on up there on the top of the rock?
I had to zoom in with the camera to see properly…

I’m not sure I’ve noticed this sculpture before… And it’s not included in the brochure for the summer’s sculpture biennale. How long has it been there?!

Checking up on it, I find articles on the web telling me that the sculpture’s name is “Passion Extreme”, and it was actually put in place on top of that rock in mid May this year; in commemoration of an adventurer, climber and extreme skier who grew up in this town (Tomas Olsson) but died ten years ago in an attempt to ski down the north side of Mount Everest. The bronze sculpture was made by the Swedish sculptor Richard Brixel and donated to the town by a couple of local entrepreneurs.

I have to admit that personally, I’ve never really “understood” the kind of adventure spirit that makes people want to try extreme things like that. But I suppose that without that kind of people, a large part of the world would still remain unexplored, and many things we now take for granted would never have been discovered or invented…

Linking to Ruby Tuesday and Our World Tuesday.