Big Vision: Giant birds tease the eye

31 March 2015 - 02:01 By Graham Wood

While the rest of the country has been lost in a debate about tearing down statues, two South Africans have put up a large-scale sculptural artwork in Abu Dhabi showing that, while we might not know how to deal with unwanted historical monuments, we certainly know a thing or two about creating new ones that learn from mistakes. Artist Marco Cianfanelli and architect Jeremy Rose recently added the finishing touches to an enormous installation outside Yas Mall by Aldar, on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi. It is an arrangement of 132 columns 20m high: 120 tons of steel, all fabricated in South Africa, Cianfanelli proudly reminds us.As you move around the piece, six images of falcons taking flight come into focus at various points, conjured as if by magic in the spaces between the poles, and then fragment again.Cianfanelli and Rose pioneered this ingenious technique, which makes it possible to create a large-scale artwork without building a solid monument when they erected Release in 2012 in KwaZulu-Natal at the spot where Nelson Mandela had been captured 50 years before.It comprises 50 pillars that resolve into a floating portrait of Mandela when viewed from a particular point. It's a kind of anti-monument that imbues the historical site with significance without being "overbearing or arrogant", as Cianfanelli puts it.Release achieves the incredible feat of making public memory feel personal and intimate, and the site solemn and moving, but not preachy.Although "Falcons is designed to have a similar effect, its purpose is not commemoration". As Rose says, it is more like "a hunt for meaning in the landscape". The site for the sculpture had no obvious significance."We had to design without benefit of response to an established site," says Rose.Nevertheless, their clients felt a "need to mark identity and place", Cianfanelli says.Rather than historical figures or political leaders, Cianfanelli and Rose chose the symbolic image of falcons, a reference to the ancient Bedouin history of falconry in the area. This was partly out of consideration for what would be accessible to a wide range of people - Abu Dhabi is, after all, being developed as an international destination - but nevertheless evoke "histories of significance" without being literal.It was also partly to avoid diluting or detracting from the integrity of Release while still respecting "other opportunities for commemoration".Cianfanelli says the image has a "quality of play and celebration" intended to bring "moments of delight" to viewers.Combined with its symbolic and evocative power, it should indeed conjure a deeper sense of place and self, and bring a subtlety and complexity to what might have been just another mall decoration.Cianfanelli says: "There is always an intelligent, compelling response to context that can enrich your experience of a place."Having found that alone should help Falcons last longer than any Ozymandias-like bronze statue, or the wildly kitsch pearl sculpture on top of Ferrari World that belittles the harsh history of pearl diving in the region...

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