Archive for Sculpture – mostly ugly

Bali: Ubud’s Sacred Monkey Reserve

Monkey Forest Road in Ubud terminates at the Monkey Forest Reserve – well actually it doesn’t terminate, but joins Jalan Hanoman (the monkey hero of the Ramayana) and swings back into town.  But at this southern end of the town you can enter the reserve, paying a modest price to do so, and with the […]

Bali: Odd Sculptures

There’s a lot of sculpture in Bali, especially in temples and palaces.  There are a lot of wood and stone carvers, and the road between Ubud and the airport is lined with their shops and outlets for their wares, so on your way to the airport you pass armies in volcanic rock that rival the […]

Bali: Ubud’s Saraswati Temple

After a few days at the beach we went to Ubud, which is supposed to be the cultural hub of Bali.  There are temple dances of several flavors offered every night there, and extensive arts and crafts shopping.  There are also art museums, but some in our party are generally opposed to them so we […]

Bali: Tirta Gangga, or Water Palace

This place was built in the 1940s by a king of south-central Bali – several sculptures are dated 1948. It’s name means waters of the Ganges, and although it’s remote from India the water did seem pure and plentiful. I don’t know if it’s source is springs or rain. At any rate it’s not a […]

Back to Singapore Sculpture….

This sculpture is to be found outside a building at the Science Park, adjacent to the National University of Singapore. OK, is it a bunch of vaguely Tibetan clouds? Or is it, as we think, a pyramid of brains? You know, I think that aside from gardening, Singapore’s general sense of aesthetics is pretty completely […]

Hong Kong: Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple

I went to this temple in 1993. It’s still there, but there are a lot more Buddha statues. Now the whole trail up the mountain (some 460 stairs) is lined with life-sized gold-painted Buddhas in astonishing variety: These are the ones you can see from the main pavilion about two thirds of the way up. […]

Financial District Squiggle

I like this one. It’s abstract, symmetrical, nicely finished, and a good swirly contrast to the right angles all around it.

Popular Bullock-Cart Statue

This is a nice, if nostalgic, sculpture on the River Walk across from the Asian Civilizations Museum. Thisis what used to happen in this area, before it became tourist eateries and financial buildings. And people love it – they stroke the bullock, they pat the shoulders of the laborers, they’ve rubbed it shiny in lots […]

Fat Bird Sculpture

This is on the River Walk, a prominent tourist area downtown. It’s enormous and bulbous. I think it’s ugly, but apparently this scuptor has some pull – there’s another ugly bulbous piece near the Hilton on Orchard Road. Below is the rear view: I don’t think anybody really likes this statue. You can see that […]

Chinese Garden and the Eight Singapore Immortals

In my last post I mentioned that the Japanese and Chinese Gardens exist as a result of city planning decisions – that in the industrial wastes that would eventually occupy the Jurong swamps, Singapore’s government realized that people needed a place to go for greenery, tranquility, and recreation.  Naturally, since this is Singapore, we could […]