TalkWalk

Float Forms by Douglas Coupland 2007. These fantastic forms are oversized depictions of fishing bobbers, denoting the lakefront theme at City Place. For those who don’t fish, bobbers (or floats) are usually attached to a fishing line and can drift in the prevailing current with a suspended baited hook. It also indicates when a fish has taken the bait. The CN Tower behind looks like the biggest bobber of them all.

The second hand statue of a king. “I was not really after Edward VII. I was after a great horse”; said Harry Jackman who financed the transportation of the statue from Delhi to Toronto in 1968.

“I think it would be delightful if the statue were installed as a kind of playground. It would be disastrous to regard it as a work of art, but as a campy symbol of the British Empire it would be perfect. Particularly if it were painted in Sergeant Pepper colours!”; said Toronto art consultant Michael Greenwood.

Gallery owner Jack Po***ck said “the only significance the statue had was that it was large and made of bronze”, adding “that’s the tragedy of it, because bronze lasts forever.”

The statue of King Edward VII by British sculptor Thomas Brock was unveiled in Delhi in 1922. When India was “in the process of getting rid of reminders of the days of British rule”, transportation to Toronto was financed before a location was chosen for it. The statue now stands in Queen’s Park – fittingly opened by Edward when he was Prince of Wales, and dedicated to his mother Queen Victoria.

Credit Torontoist for background info.