The Super Lamb Banana
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The Super Lamb Banana is a sculpture in Liverpool, England.
It is painted in bright yellow, weighs almost eight tons and stands at about 15 foot. It is often mistaken for a dog, but as its name suggests, it was intended to be a cross between a banana and a lamb. It was created by Manhattan-based Japanese artist Taro Chiezo for the ArtTransPennine Exhibition in 1998, in celebration of the reopening of Liverpool's branch of the famous Tate Gallery. It originally stood outside the Liverpool Playhouse in Williamson Square, where it was regularly vandalized. It now stands in Tithebarn Street, outside the Liverpool John Moores University Avril Robarts Library/LRC (Learning Resource Centre) Building, after spending some time in Wapping, near the Albert Dock on the city's famous waterfront.
The artist sculpted it as an ironic comment on the dangers of genetic engineering, as well as to reflect the city's playful sense of humour. Chiezo himself made only a four-inch model, and it was up to local Andy Small to recreate it on a scale of 1:50, using a wire-mesh frame supporting a concrete shell.
Although its usual colour is (consciously?) reminiscent of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine, the statue has occasionally been given a temporary repaint, including in pink and green. Nor has it remained static: It spent some time at Spike Island in nearby Widnes, Cheshire, near the Catalyst Museum, and was once spotted on the back of a truck in the Merseyside town of Prescot.
[edit] Quotations
- "The statue, painted in bright yellow gloss paint, has to be seen up close to fully appreciate its yellow-ness, banana-ness and lamb-ness." (Photographer Aidan O'Rourke)
- "What about a sheep blended with a leek for our friends in Wales? Painted illuminous green it could be used to perhaps symbolise Cardiff?" (Birmingham website)
- "It provides a counterpoint to the more classically-styled buildings around it." (Tony Woof of the Liverpool Architecture and Design Trust)
