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Nope, your eyes don’t deceive you – that is a massive shiny teapot. And, yes, it’s sitting on the venerable cultural behemoth that is the Hayward Gallery. Why, you may ask.
Well, the piece, called ‘Samovar’ is a commission from Berlin-based art collective Slavs and Tatars. As a cultured and well-educated Time Out reader, you will know that a samovar is a Russian tea urn. According to the gallery, the inflatable piece is a rumination on the ‘multicultural and colonial histories of tea’. Seen historically as quintessentially British, tea was a major commodity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and its trade was central to the wealth of the British Empire.
Slavs and Tatars say of the 14-metre work, ‘Like the British, we’re serious about tea – as well as self-deprecating humour – and can’t imagine a better way to tease tea-baggers than a giant samovar right outside the Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre, with its historical mission to present an international face to the public.’
So there you have it. Germans invoking Russians to take a sideswipe at the British. Next up: Yayoi Kusama’s ‘LBW’, a gigantic mirrored bus shelter in which an endless cricket match is taking place. Sounds all right, actually.
While we’re on the South Bank, the Hayward has also revealed its next outdoor piece.
Another German artist, Klaus Weber, has created ‘Thinking Fountains’, which will feature two larger-than-life bronze figures that spout water and a waterfall cascading down from a concrete walkway, ‘partly inspired by the portal sculptures of gothic cathedrals’. Yeah, but it’s not a big teapot, is it, Klaus?
‘Samovar’ is at the Hayward Gallery until Nov 14. ‘Thinking Fountains’ opens later in September.
There are plans for a huge lido on the Thames.