Giant Hand-Face Sculpture Looming Over New Zealand Freaks Out Its People

@Wellington_NZ

A giant hand which has been described as a “Lovecraftian nightmare come to life” has been lifted into place atop Wellington’s City Gallery in New Zealand.

h/t: bbc

@Wellington_NZ

Ronnie van Hout’s “Quasi” installation was carried by helicopter to its new home on Monday overlooking the city’s civic centre.

@WgtnCC

The artwork, which was created in 2016, originally stood on top of the Christchurch Art Gallery. It is on loan to Wellington, where it will stand for the next three to four years.

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With Quasi, Ronnie van Hout elevates the hand of the artist to monumental status in the regenerating city. Based on scans of his own body parts, van Hout describes Quasi as ‘the artist’s hand made giant’. A surreal piece of visual fun, it plays with the idea of the artist’s hand as the source of his or her genius. Quasi is full of pop-culture references, like the crawling, disembodied hand of old comedy-horror films, or Victor Hugo’s lonely outcast Quasimodo on the roof of Notre Dame.