Feature: Chinese art illuminates Sydney's Sculpture by Sea
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E-mail Xinhua, November 12, 2013
For almost 10 years, when spring dawns on Sydney's famous Bondi Beach, something wonderful and inexplicable emerges along the headlands, something that has captured a nation's imagination.
On the Bondi Beach to Tamarama coastal walk, the Sculpture by the Sea has come along the way since its humble beginnings when it was produced on a shoe-string budget, most of which went to the exhibiting artists.
Today it's the world's largest annual free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition and has become one of leisure-seeking Sydney's most loved events.
Sydney-based artist, Francesca Mataraga, is a University of NSW (College of Fine Arts) graduate and a 2013 Helen Lempriere Scholarship recipient which has allowed her to undertake travel- based study in Europe, including visits to the galleries of Copenhagen, Sculpture by the Sea, Aarhus and the Venice Biennale.
Mataraga told Xinhua that her goal is to let people enjoy."My work for Sculpture by the Sea was specifically planned and designed for this exhibition. Its three low walls where people can walk through and around with a striped pattern based on an Ikea fabric is my way of linking the abstract to the everyday art. It' s just an inspiration, it's not necessarily a political or intellectual criticism,"she said.
With artists from 14 countries represented, the 2013 Sculpture by the Sea features many whacky works by some 40 international artists, including Australia's rock and roll sculptors Ron Robertson-Swann and Ken Unsworth.
There are more than 100 works taking their place on the sand and along the popular pathway as part of the world's largest outdoor celebration of imagination and nature.
It's a collection of the weird and wonderful, the fun and the fantastic and it has a hold on the Australian cultural imagination.
Chinese artist Qian Sihua's gargantuan liberation-red bubble gum boy is this year's scene stealer as it stands sentry on the South Bondi headland.
The Chinese artist's bubble No.5 is one of the 107 sculptures placed along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk for this year's Sculpture by the Sea.
The exhibition's founder David Handley said Qian's work, which is for sale for 38,000 Australian dollars (about 35,650 U.S. dollars) is part of a heavyweight Chinese contingent and is consistently among the most popular.
"We've got over 100 sculptures by artists around the world including two from China Chen Xi Hua and Chen Wen Ling". "We wanted Sculpture by the Sea, when we started it 17 years ago, to capture an essence of Sydney as a relaxed yet sophisticated city and to project that image internationally and in doing so to attract artists from around the world,"Handley told Xinhua.
Handley said that they really wanted to engage with China. In 2005, they had Professor Xu Jiang Wo from Beijing with his fantastic sculpture entered in the exhibition.
The distinctive red Chinese sculptures are standouts among some of the fantastic objects shown in the exhibition. "There's vibrancy in the Chinese sculptures which really grab people's attention, notably the works of Chen Xi Hua and Chen Wen Ling which are really quite delightful as they reflect the human condition and sends a universal message,"Handley said.
In 2005, a companion event was opened at Cottesloe Beach in Western Australia. In 2009, it was announced that Aarhus in Denmark would host the first Sculpture by the Sea exhibition outside of Australia.
She said that one reason that the exhibit clicks is because it is free and has a lot of diversity in sculptures on exhibit.
"A lot of the work perhaps is accessible to people, there's an element of fun not just for adults but also for children," Mataraga said.
The first two exhibitions attracted around half a million visitors and to this day, the city residents flock every October to "walk,look, touch and enjoy the sculptures on by the sea."
So every year this sleepy coastal walk is transformed into a seaside art gallery, an exhibition born from a wish to create a major public event that is free to everyone.
But like all great art, it was not an easy road.
Handley recounted that he started from humble beginnings 17 years ago working out of his lounge room. "We had a 400 Australian dollars marketing budget and 25,000 people turned up. We have to put up and remove 64 sculptures every day because we didn't have a budget for security,"Handley said.
The beach looms so large in Australia's national psyche and to "artify" it and decorate it seems not only normal but somehow natural and that's perhaps why it's so well loved here and will continue to be something that Australians would treasure. Endi
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