Benidorm has not had an easy time of it lately. Many bars, restaurants and hotels have been closed for a long time and it seems an eternity since the tourists were there in numbers. This may be changing soon, so it’s a great opportunity to enjoy the town without the crowds. There’s still plenty to do though, and no doubt things will start to open up as soon as they are able. Indeed, the restaurant we wanted to go to in the old town, and many of the others, only seem to be open at weekends making for a bit of disappointment at lunchtime on a glorious spring day.
Our recent visit was for something a little bit different. Taiwanese artist Hung Yi has an extraordinary collection of colourful sculptures on display. It’s like a psychedelic open air gallery. The devil is in the detail with his work, and the more you look at these incredible creations, the more you actually see. Start outside the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall) then make your way down to Avenida del Mediterráneo and you will see all 14 works of art.
In addition to the colourful animals, look out for the cute pair of pandas whose design is like what you might find on a fine china crockery set! We loved them!!
According to Fremin Gallery, Hung Yi was born in Taichung, Taiwan in 1970. His works are inspired by Taiwanese culture or day-to-day life in Taiwan. In the 1990s, it was popular among artists in Taiwan to incorporate or adopt new Western methods of expression. However, Hung Yi observed people on the street and expressed them in his work, one after another. During his early period, he mainly created works in which cartoons and sketches were combined, based on careful and abundant observation. Later, he created line art in a single colour or colourful, large works of graphic art, directly expressing the active life of people in the city. In 2000, he began working on public art (sculptures), mainly under the themes of exaggerated human or animals. Since then, even though he uses a somewhat simple method of expression, he has been creating lovely art works inspired by Taiwanese culture or day-to-day life in bright colours that are observed in traditional Taiwanese patterns.
This visual feast is waiting for you on the streets of Benidorm until July 12. Then it will move to the Paseo del Prado in Madrid. Moving this collection is an impressive operation too, as you can see from this video of it arriving in Valencia!
