Monday, May 2, 2011

Egginess in Newmarket's street art


Ducking down Teed Street in Newmarket yesterday evening, on the way to a meeting -- and I find eggs. At first I thought these were some sort of retail adwork. Promoting something, well -- eggy, maybe? Modern design store? Minimalist furnishings?


No, this is street artwork. $70,000 worth of street artwork, commissioned by the Newmarket Arts Trust which raised funds for this sort of thing from local businesses.

"Artist Seung Yul Oh says the work is designed to challenge the public's imagination and people can make of it whatever they like. The egg shaped sculptures are being called Globgobs."




The eggs - er, sorry, Globgobs -- were installed as part of an overall upgrade of Teed and Osbourne Streets, off Broadway. Considering I was seeing this for the first time on a bit of a stormy grey day, late on an autumn afternoon, I was really impressed with how wonderful the two streets look right now.

But -- eggs? There's nine of them, so that makes each one just over $7777, unveiled on a cold wet night last year, 25 June.

According to a press release:
Chairman of the Newmarket Arts Trust, David Haigh, says the artist has cleverly created a marriage of the old and the new with his nine brightly coloured egg-shaped 'Globgobs'. "The egg, as a symbol of new life and hope, goes back into ancient times and through many cultures. In a similar fashion, the streets of Osborne and Teed are now transformed into a desirable retail centre. To me the eggs are a joyous and colourful attraction to the area and are at a level that children can enjoy their visual beauty," says Mr Haigh.
 To be fair, they do, at least, catch the eye.

9 comments:

  1. While I like them, that is an awful lot of money. I hope they are very weather resistant and graffiti proof.

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  2. What the..... unique i guess....I agree with Andrew

    S

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  3. Unless they've been sort of artificially aged for effect -- I don't think the elements are being kind to the eggs. I saw some defects, particulary on those reddy-orangey ones.

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  4. What a bunch of eggs they are..EPIC FAIL...for the price tag that is. Give me Wind Tree anytime..at least they (the eggs)are 'art' unlike a certain so called 'contemporary art award winning piece' aka 'Collateral' by Dane Mitchell from 2009 - that was literally a pile of rubbish which won the $15,000 prize.

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  5. I like the googie eggs but the price tag is a bit steep.
    I'll happily off-load a bargain priced controversial 'sculpture' named Vault but nicknamed The Yellow Peril, cost the same as the eggs but that was back in 1978 ;)

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  6. They look brilliant! A touch of colour to the usual grey Auckland. We don't usually do a god job of artwork in Auckland, but I think this is great.

    BTW, Urbika is not a firm. It's just a website in which people list all the things happening in their cities. In this case, someone has mentioned this project.

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  7. @Jayne: Uh -- I reckon you can keep Vault. Thanks, but ... no thanks.

    @Anonymous: Ah! Dang it, thought that was a company's site. Cheers, I've deleted it now.

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