Florentijn Hofman
We want to finish off the week in a cheerful note and what better way to do that than the bold cartoonish animal sculptures of the Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman. Just look at his infamous “Rubber Duck” that seems to have traveled around the world! Hofman also makes other animals; monkeys, rabbits, frogs and ducks, from site-specific everyday objects and place them in public places to make a statement and astonish the viewer. Hofman’s works have been exhibited internationally from Brazil and Japan to Australia and Sweden. Back in 2003, he transformed part of a street in Schiedam, the Netherlands into an art installation by painting it entirely yellow! Like in the Wizard of Oz. “Yellow Street” was part of a group show organized by the city council.
Hofman’s works certainly draw much attention from big crowds and are always very memorable. The most famous and most travelled out of the giant animals is certainly the BIG RUBBER DUCK, which made its most recent appearance at the Sydney Festival in January 2013. Here we give you a photo journal of where Mr. Duck has been! And then introduce more characters from his cast; “Fat Monkey” (2010), “Big Yellow Rabbit” (2011), “Kobe Frog” (2011), and “Lookout Rabbit” (2011):
Rubber Duck in Sao Paolo 2008
Rubber Duck in Osaka 2009
Rubber Duck in Auckland 2011
Rubber Duck in Sydney 2013
“Fat Monkey” (2010) is a site specific work which was created out of the question from the Pixelshow to make a sculpture during their conference in 2010. Made with the help of local students and made from the Brazilian icon; colored flip-flops, which obviously works as one of the 10.000 pixels.
“The Big Yellow Rabbit” is a temporary 13-meter high sculpture, as part of the 2011 OpenArt biennale in Örebro, Sweden. It’s an enlarged cuddle toy made out of Swedish products and thrown against the statue of Engelbrekt.
“The Kobe Frog” is a 10-meter high sculpture on the roof of the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art in Kobe made by Tadao Ando. The museum was built on the site that was stroke by the earthquake in 1995. And this frog sculpture with its party hat on is meant to be about enjoying life and being flexible in times of nature disasters, danger and stress.
“Lookout Rabbit” is a temporary 12-meter high sculpture. It’s a rabbit with a red dot, which you can enter and have a look out over the river the Waal. The work is situated at the Valkhofpark at Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
