Big public art displays delight and inspire

Two years ago, I wrote about my love of big, bold public art displays.
Since then, there have been many notable examples of such works.
The most dramatic example was at the Tower of London last year. An art installation called “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red” paid homage to British soldiers killed during World War I.
Marking the 100th anniversary of the Great War, the installation featured a sea of ceramic red poppies surrounding the Tower of London. In all, there were 888,246 poppies – each one representing the memory of a soldier killed between 1914 and 1918.

The poppies filled the Tower’s famous moat between July 17 and Nov. 11, 2014. The installation was the work of artists Paul Cummins and Tom Piper.
(See articles by BBC News, Colossal, Mashable, and the Tower of London website.)

Last spring, art studio Dawn Of Man projected images of people napping on buildings around New York City. The projections occurred unannounced and only lasted for a few hours. The huge projections would draw crowds and the artists were onsite to discuss the project, called “Projection Napping.” (See article on Business Insider.)

An outdoor sculpture called “Maman” resembles a giant spider. It is over 30 feet high and 33 feet wide and made of bronze, stainless steel and marble. “Maman” is the work of the late French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois. Editions of the sculpture can be found in the U.K., Canada, Spain, Japan and South Korea.
(See articles by My Modern Met and Wikipedia.)

Last year, artist Daan Roosegaarde created a glowing bike path in the Netherlands based on Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Starry Night.” (See article by Wired.)

“Breathing Flower” is a 24-foot-diameter kinetic sculpture of a lotus flower by Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa. The inflatable petals on the sculpture slowly move as if the flower is breathing. “Breathing Flower” was installed outside the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco in 2012. (See article by Laughing Squid.)

For several years, Portuguese art studio Sextafeira Producoes covered the streets of Agueda, Portugal, with a colorful canopy of umbrellas and beach balls for the month of July. (See article by Laughing Squid.)

In May 2013, French artist Mademoiselle Maurice created three colorful origami installations in Angers, France, for the ARTAQ 2013 festival. The large-scale outdoor installations were made with 30,000 pieces of origami made by the people of Angers in the months before the festival. (See article by Colossal.)

In September 2013, Brazilian artist Herbert Baglione painted ghoulish shadow figures along a 9,600-square-foot stretch of downtown Frankfurt, Germany, as part of the Street Art Brazil exhibition. (See article by My Modern Met.)

In August 2013, Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich set up an art installation that looks like a fragment of a building hanging precariously at the end of a ladder. The work is called “Monte-Meubles. L’Ultime demenagement.” (See article by Laughing Squid.)