In the late19th century, Auguste-Frédéric Subé, a wealthy merchant in Reims, left most of his estate to the city and designated 200,000 francs for the erection of a monumental fountain. It was built in the center of the Drouet d'Erlon square in 1906 according to the design of André Najoux. The figures around the column illustrate the local economic activities of the region of Reims - Vineyards, Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture. The four statues around the base symbolize the rivers Marne, Vesle, Suippe and Aisne.
A bronze statue of Fame originally stood at the top of the column, but it was removed by the occupying German army in 1942. Sixty percent of the city was destroyed by the end of WWII, but most of the fountain was intact. In 1989, a new statue of Victory, by the sculptor Jean Barat, was added. The fountain was extensively restored in 2016 with a budget of € 650,000 provided by donors and corporate sponsors.
This is one of my favorite art sculptures in Nevada. The colors burst against the faded brown desert.
Fun Fact: Ugo Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains consists of thirty-three boulders weighing from 20,000 pounds to 25 tons, stacked into seven towers. They form totemic figures 30 feet to 35 feet tall. They are meant to evoke contrast and continuity from nature to culture, hence their bright colors, which are typical of Rondinone’s sculptures.
In the middle of London, in Regent’s Park is a tunnel decorated with paintings in the style of the Paleolithic cave paintings of Lascaux and Altamira. The tunnel connects the two sides of London Zoo in a pedestrian subway underneath the Outer Circle road. The paintings are from 1954, painted by Henry Rushbury and his students from the Royal Academy of Arts School of Painting.
Mural at Minus18 I spent this past week painting a mural at Minus18 a organization for queer youth in Melbourne. As part of the Queer the Streets project I wanted to decorate queer friendly places. The people I interacted with at minus18 were all lovely, friendly people. The painting is based on portraits from the Identity Project. I wanted it to be as inclusive as possible so instead of only writing the identities of those pictured, as I normally do, I wrote all the labels used in the Identity Project as a tag style background, and then painted the mural on top of that.
Doris Salcedo, Installation at Palace of Justice, Bogotá, Colombia
“For me, the notion of duration—something that is not finished, a process going on—is very important. Also it is important for me to locate these pieces out of historical time. So the time for reflection is open for the viewer and for me, both. It is a very important aspect of the work— something that is happening, that remains happening, that will still be there … a condition that is timeless, that unfortunately repeats every day, that you cannot walk away from.”
