Artist shares Boom Boom’s background
Gregor Kregar checks out his latest creation in Taupō’s Riverside Park. Photo: Dan Hutchinson
It’s been a seven-year journey to get Riverside Park’s sculpture trail underway, but it started with a Boom Boom this week.
By Dan Hutchinson
Artist Gregor Kregar was in town to install the sculpture on Wednesday and then officially introduce it to the public on Friday.
He accepts not everyone will love Boom Boom but that was not uncommon with public art when it is first installed.
The process for Gregor started in 2019 when he was meant to be selected to produce the work but the Taupō District Council vetoed the original site and then Covid-19 arrived and then the budget came and went and came again.
“It was an interesting sort of process, like quite often these kind of public projects are. But I must say that I'm sort of relieved and really happy and satisfied that this project, first of all, actually got realised and then that it's actually finally in place.”
Even the original name changed, thanks to the input of Taupō Sculpture Trust chairman Chris Martin.
“He’s a bit of a marketer. I was kind of talking more about reflections and water and some things like that.
“But I must say that Boom Boom suits it really well in a couple of ways, because first of all, this work sort of, for me, references Taupō as a lake, but also Taupō as kind of one of the biggest volcanic eruptions in the world. And you can imagine what kind of boom that is.”
The rock it sits on references the volcanic eruptions and the rocks that were thrown out of it that were the same size or bigger.
“But on the other side, on top of this rock, there's a dinosaur. And when big sauropod dinosaurs like this would walk, we could actually hear Boom Boom as well.”
The rock is made out of core 10 steel while the dinosaur is made from highly polished stainless steel.
“So it looks all kind of light, but it's actually, you know, really strong 3mm thick marine grade stainless steel that had to be bent, that has really significant internal structure, and so on.”
He hoped the people of Taupō would fall in love with the work.
“I'm sure most probably not everybody will love it, but public sculpture does that, especially when you put it in. Some people might be, you know, a bit irritated, but then they slowly start to love it and so on. But sculpture is also here to provoke reaction.
“And sometimes, unfortunately, that reaction is not always positive. Sometimes it might be negative, but it's like our emotions sometimes feel a bit like that as well.”
One of the original sculpture trust members Peter Jarvis said there were 24 spaces around Riverside Park identified as sites for sculptures.
The Taupō District Council funded $100,000, or half of the cost of the first sculpture but the trust would need to raise funds for the rest of the works.
Peter says filling all the spaces would take a long time.