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| The Udder Side
Artists: Angus Taylor, Francois Visser & Steven Delport Materials: Cast concrete, cast bronze Production & Casting: Dionysus Sculpture Works In one of his biggest projects to date, Angus Taylor, together with fellow artists and assistants from Dionysus Sculpture Works (DSW), has recently completed the construction and installation of three monumental public sculptures at the new Irene Mall. This is arguably one of Taylor’s most successful ventures too, especially in view of the fact that he has just been nominated for the 2008 Visi Designer of the Year awards for this work. The Mall is unique in that it has taken the model of the quintessential South African shopping mall and turned it on its head; rabbit-warren indoor corridors, artificial light and stale processed air are out and are replaced by a number of core buildings loosely communicating with one another by means of public piazzas. The open-plan nature of the complex works to invite shoppers into the various stores, while the spaces between foster a sense of the market squares of yesteryear. Both are in keeping with the fondly held notion of Irene as a close-knit community. Perhaps the most quirky of the three sculptures at the Mall is The Udder Side, which Taylor conceptualised and produced in collaboration with fellow artists Francois Visser and Steven Delport. As can be surmised from the title, the piece is an affectionate send-up of the dairy cow – the unofficial symbol of Irene. When DSW became involved in this project Taylor was pleasantly surprised to find that the developers were free-thinkers and thankfully not fixated on inauthentic themes and architectural styles. They were keen to explore local ideas and histories and since the area had previously been home to a number of small independent dairy farms, the idea of the humble cow, elevated and celebrated, seemed appropriate. But cows are not new to the local and international arena of arts and culture. They have already made their debut in the form of the colourful fibreglass cows that flooded Swiss cities in the first “Cow Parades” of the 1990s – a theme soon adopted worldwide in various fundraising initiatives. So a more ‘off the wall’ approach to the bovine form was sought, and I suppose one doesn’t get much more ‘off the wall’ than to submerge a hugely oversized cow beneath a shopping mall’s piazza floor with only its four legs and udder left visible! (By the way, the rumour that the rest of the cow is visible from the basement below is sadly not true.) DSW realised that The Udder Side would inevitably be a magnet for children and planned the construction of the piece accordingly. A small-scale model made from clay perfected shape and proportions and this was then up-scaled using a custom DSW-built laser system. The final udder and legs, which stand more than six meters high, were then cast, in sections, from reinforced concrete. Legs and udder were topped with cast-bronze hooves and teats to complete the effect. Surfaces were pigmented and smoothed to resemble the animal’s skin and also to allow children to slide and slither all over the structure without fear of harm. As an added precaution, Taylor and his team departed momentarily from their usual meticulous attention to proportion and widened the gaps between udder and legs slightly in order to avoid any danger of a child’s limb being trapped if the child should fall off the structure. Our understanding of public sculpture in this country is more often than not clouded by the perception that the piece should venerate a once celebrated (now often reviled) personality or a brave deed. Public sculpture is therefore expected to be imbued with a sense of solemnity and reverence. Not so The Udder Side which instead elevates the banal and seeks to introduce an element of playfulness and fun. |
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Some Cow Facts
- 1,200 construction workers built the shopping centre.
- The Tower and its water reservoir is a new landmark in Irene.
- The centre has 95 segmental arches in the brickwork.