A Time for Reflection

Three shiny metal men have found a home in St Helier

Although the public may have noticed one sculpture on display on the Esplanade, two more will be unveiled on Wednesday.

2.5 Million Light Years, which was installed a month ago on the upper floor balcony of 44 Esplanade, and Doppelgänger, which will go on the ground floor, will be unveiled by treasury Minister Philip Ozouf at 12.30 pm.
An identical copy of the balcony figure will share the ground floor with Doppelgänger.
The three life-sized figures, which are cast in aluminium and cost £80,000, are for the new headquarters of law firm Ogier and are the work of German artist Mariele Neudecker.
The sculptures are part of Planning’s percentage-for-art scheme, which encourages developers with projects over a certain size to contribute to public art.

Art adviser Philip Hewat-Jaboor said: “I am very excited about these. It is quite a bold step. The artist is a fantastically imaginative sculptor. The sculptures have a highly reflective surface so you can see them as you come down the Esplanade. They are hugely detailed and realistic. The figures are ghostly, other-worldly.”

Ms Neudecker was recently shortlisted to create a sculpture for the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square.
She was born in Düsseldorf in 1965 and studied at Goldsmiths’ and Chelsea College of Art in London and now teaches at Bath Spa School of Art and lives in Bristol.
In 1997 she received first prize for sculpture at the seventh International Biennale of Sculpture and Drawing at the Gulbenkian Foundation and she was given a Henry Moore Foundation Sculpture Fellowship in 1998. She collaborated with Opera North on Winterreise, 2003, which has toured across the UK and has had solo shows at Tate Britain and Tate St Ives. In 2008, she installed This Thing Called Darkness, a large-scale permanent installation in Arts Towada, Japan, as well as a temporary audio-work on the Millennium Bridge, London entitled Much was Decided Before you were Born.
Ms Neudecker has works in the collections of the Government Art Collection, the British Council and the Philip Morris Collection, in New York.

Jersey Evening Post - Monday 26th July 2010

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