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After taking up residence at Dante Park by Lincoln Center, the Flatiron South Public Plaza and the Girl Scouts of America Building, the iconic "Hippo Ballerina" statue has dubbed Pershing Square Plaza West its new home.
The 15-foot-tall and 2.5-ton-heavy tutu-clad bronze sculpture is instantly recognizable and, this time, it will be on display alongside two other statues—"Hippo Ballerina, pirouette" and "Rhino Harlequin, pirouette—"as part of the New York City Department of Transportation's Art Program.
You'll find all three monuments on the west side of Park Avenue between East 41st and East 42nd Streets, right in front of Grand Central Station, through the end of December.
The pieces are the work of Danish artist Bjørn Okholm Skaarup and "Hippo Ballerina" in specific is inspired by Edgar Degas' beautiful sculpture "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen" and the dancing hippos of Walt Disney's Fantasia.
"My animal sculptures are a celebration of life and nature and its many intriguing shapes and creatures," Skaarup said in an official statement. "Each animal is thoroughly culturalized; representing human allegories or use manmade tools, all placed in peculiar and surreal encounters between nature and culture. The result is a group of bronze sculptures that combines the gracious and exclusive with the communicative, distorted, and humorous."
Folks who wish to do so can also take a close look at smaller editions of Skaarup's works at Cavalier Galleries on West 57th Street by Fifth Avenue.
It's clearly a great time to be a fan of outdoor public art. In addition to these adorable animal statues, New Yorkers get to gaze at a replica of the Statue of Liberty wearing a cartoon mask now on display on the High Line, for example, or revel in a new Rockefeller Plaza artwork that changes based on its surroundings (and is actually a live NFT!).
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