Henry Moore’s Butterfly Moved to a Factory for Restoration
BERLIN.- Henry Moore’s sculpture located in front of the Mirror Pond at the House of World Cultures will get a shine. Through a collaboration between three partners the sculpture will be restored this year. The loading of the sculpture for transport was made by a crane on Monday.
“There is a right physical size for every idea,” the British artist Henry Moore would say. In 1984, Henry Moore created his last public work, ” Butterfly”, on the occasion of the 750-year anniversary of Berlin. In 1987, it was set up against the Congress Hall. Despite its monumental size. the bronze butterfly shines on the water in front of the House of World Cultures. However, time has taken its toll on this Berlin landmark. Now in 2010, the large butterfly will once again shine.
A truck-mounted crane lifts the sculpture 'Butterfly' by Henry Moore in front of the 'House of World Cultures' in Berlin, Germany, 22 March 2010. The sculpture, affectionately called 'pregnant oyster' by Berlin's inhabitants, will be restored until the middle of May and then return to its place
By an initiative of the Friends of the House of World Cultures, and with the support of its President Jörg A. Henle, and with support from the German Lottery Foundation Berlin and Bayer AG, the bronze figure will be restored from March through May. The project is ambitious: The 10-ton sculpture must be dismantled and transported to the factory floor, and then re-coated and polished. The restoration will be carried out by Hermann Noack foundry, which had the figure at that time it was casted.
The House of World Cultures in Berlin is Germany’s centre for non-European art. It presents cultures from outside Europe via contemporary art exhibitions, films, theatre- and dance performances, lectures, concerts and congresses. The projects focus on a topic which is then being debated within various art forms. The House of World Cultures is located in one of Berlin’s architectural landmarks: the former Congress Hall, also called the “pregnant oyster,” in the centre of Berlin, next to the Carillon in Berlin-Tiergarten and the Chancellery.
