King Tide Claims A Number Of Sculpture By The Sea Artworks In Sydney

Huge swells and a king tide at Tamarama Beach this Monday has claimed a number of installations set up for the long-running Sculpture By The Sea exhibition, set up on the coastal walk from Bondi to Tamarama.

As Fairfax reports, the tides at Tamarama destroyed three sculptures and damaged many others, dragging them towards the ocean in an unprecedented way.

Collingwood artist Bronek Kozka's Fair Dinkum Offshore Processing was "totally broken apart", with Kozka stating, "I'm upset that it's gone, but I'm more upset that offshore processing is an issue we need to keep in peoples' minds all the time, and now they won't be seeing it."

Sculpture By The Sea is the world's largest annual free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition and is celebrating 20 years this year. Its founder David Handley said they moved a number of the artworks further up the beach, but "we've never had it come more than halfway down the beach before".

He said, "The work that has been destroyed, we moved it 25 metres back from the end of the stormwater drain. In all these years we've never had a work damaged on there, but the waves were so strong they still swept it off."

Other artworks affected by the tides at Tamarama Beach include Sang Sug Kim's The Window Of The Future, Elyssa Sykes-Smith's A Weighted Embrace and Angelika Summa's Alien: Self Consciousness Is A Virus From Outer Space.

Sculpture By The Sea is open from 24 October to 6 November.

 

 

 

Sculpture by the Sea 2016. Major wave action on Tamararama Beach. "In Awe" well anchored.#sculpturebythesea #tamaramabeach #sculpture #contemporaryart #sculptor #art

A photo posted by Rebecca Rose (@rebecca_rose_sculptor_nz) on Oct 24, 2016 at 3:40pm PDT 

 

I was at #sculpturebythesea at high tide yesterday. Great watching the huge sea conditions but I missed out on seeing some of the work due to the closure of some of the track. Sad to hear this morning that some sculptures were destroyed.

A video posted by Sadhana Peterson (@lillipillistudio) on Oct 24, 2016 at 3:48pm PDT

 

That time @sculpturebythesea became Sculpture In The Sea.  . . . #sculpturebythesea #sculpture #art #sea #ocean #beach #tamaramabeach #sydney #thong #plugga #rhino

A photo posted by Jo Holcombe (@jrholcombe) on Oct 24, 2016 at 4:31am PDT

 

Destruction by the Sea. Feel sorry for the artist having their work trashed like this, but in a way the waves added to the message about the plight of asylum seekers. #bondi, #tamarama, #sculpturebythesea, #sydneylocal, #tamaclosedwtf, #kingtide, #sculpturebythesea2016, #sydney, #fairdinkumoffshoreprocessing, @diego.sanchez.39.

A video posted by Danny Whittle (@danny_wh) on Oct 24, 2016 at 4:01am PDT