New York has a new entry in the whimsical sculpture arena with the installation of three unlikely ballerinas in Pershing Square, just outside Grand Central Terminal.
Hippo Ballerina, 15 feet tall and weighing 2.5 tons of bronze and tutu is the star of the show, modeled on Degas’ ‘Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen’ by Danish sculptor Bjørn Okholm Skaarup, who also created the other two, Rhino Harlequin, Pirouette and Hippo Ballerina, Pirouette.
The installation is a cooperation between the NYC Department of Transportation Arts Program and Cavalier Gallery. Skaarup’s work has been shown at other city sites in the past. In a statement, Skaarup described his work:
“My animal sculptures are a celebration of life and nature and its many intriguing shapes and creatures. Each animal is thoroughly culturalized; representing human allegories or use manmade tools, all placed in peculiar and surreal encounters between nature and culture. The result is a group of bronze sculptures that combines the gracious and exclusive with the communicative, distorted, and humorous.”
