Anger as ‘eyesore’ sculpture falls

– One of the last sculptures by US artist Dennis Oppenheim has been destroyed by local authorities in a South Korean city on the grounds that it was becoming an “eyesore”.

Art lovers have expressed shock and anger over the demolishing of Chamber, installed next to the beach at Haeundae in Busan.

Oppenheim, a conceptual and performance artist and sculptor, has works in the collections of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and London’s Tate Gallery, among others.

But that counted for nothing to the Haeundae District Office.

The steel and plastic Chamber, inspired by a flower, was more than eight metres wide and six metres high, and cost 800 million won (R9.2 million).

Intended as a tourist attraction where visitors could walk between the “petals” and take pictures, the organisers of the Busan Biennale – one of South Korea’s top art events which helped in the commission – described it on their website as “a particular sensory experience for the viewer”.

The walls “are gentle, wave-like configurations”, they said.

But the seafront location were not kind to the work, Haeundae district office official Shi YunSeok said. It began to rust because of brine and was damaged by a typhoon in 2016. –