The Statue of Liberty, Christ the Redeemer, Michelangelo’s David – they’ve got nothing on these! After extensive research (a bit of Googling), I’ve found what I regard to be some of the world’s oddest statues and sculptures… You’ll be surprised by how many obscene statues there are out there, too. But I’m afraid you’ll have to look them up in your own time…
Oh by the way, just in case you were wondering, the difference between a statue and a sculpture is that a statue is a big sculpture of a person or animal that’s made from stone or metal, and a sculpture is a work of art made by carving stone, wood or anything else. Got that?
The cat statues of Kuching | Kuching, Malaysia
You might not know this but we in the marketing department are great lovers of all things feline (and travel insurance obviously). Images of cute little kittie-witties are frequently sent back and forth and “awwed” over. So, perhaps this is why the first statues on our list are the cat statues of Kuching, Malaysia, which is appropriately nicknamed Cat City. But we’re not really sure why… (Thanks to Richard for pointing out that the name of the city, Kuching, is Malay for cat, hence the statues!)
The upside-down statue | Melbourne, Australia
There’s no greater honour than to have your life commemorated with a statue… However, personally, I think I’d prefer my statue to be the right way up…
This upside-down statue is of Charles Joseph La Trobe, who was the first lieutenant-governor of the colony of Victoria, which is now a state in Australia. Still not clear what he did to deserve being depicted the wrong way up, though…
The hanging rhino | Potsdam, Germany
They’re not as furry as kitty-kats and you probably wouldn’t want one to come and sit on your lap while you’re curled up in front of the telly, but rhinoceroses are just as adorable… But we’re not quite sure we “get” this hanging rhino statue in Potsdam, Germany…
I mean, maybe the sculpture is meant to represent the precarious ecological situation rhinoceroses find themselves in, with three of their species designated as “critically endangered”. Or, maybe it’s just a hanging rhino…
The alien tripod | Woking, UK
Whether you’ve read the book by H. G. Wells, listened to the album by Jeff Wayne or seen the film adaptation starring Tom Cruise, you’ll probably recognise this statue. It was designed by Michael Condron and depicts one of the Martian fighting machines from The War of the Worlds.
I know it’s only a sculpture but I’d still be a little concerned about getting zapped by a heat ray as I was doing my shopping. And a fiery death can be a right pain when you’ve got arms full of bags…
The massive spider | Everwhere!
Whenever a spider is discovered lurking about at home, it’s all hands on deck to try and ensnare it somehow and get it out the nearest window! As you can guess from this pathetic mental image, I’m not a fan of big spiders! Which is why I probably won’t be visiting the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain any time soon… Because outside is Maman which is a a 30-foot-tall sculpture of a spider!
Since it was designed in 1999, versions of Maman have popped up pretty much all over the world as well as outside the Guggenheim. There’s one at the Tate Modern in London, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in the USA, the National Gallery of Canada, the State Hermitage Museum in Russia, the Mori Art Museum in Japan and the Samsung Museum of Modern Art in South Korea.
That’s a lot of places I have to cross off my must-visit list!
Photo credits: thienzieyung (CC BY 2.0), Ben Sutherland (CC BY 2.0), singingbeagle (CC BY-SA 2.0), Phil Lees (CC BY 2.0), Metro Centric (CC BY 2.0) and Warofdreams (CC BY-SA 3.0)