Pliny's Sorrow - Johan Creten

In 2014, Belgian artist Johan Creten, exhibited several large sculptures at the Open Air Middelheim Museum in Antwerp. The City of Antwerp saw fit to purchase one of Creten's magnificant pieces, a four meter tall, bronze, eagle/cormorant-type bird, with outspread wings, called Pliny's Sorrow. On June 23rd 2015, Pliny's Sorrow, which, when viewed from one angle, can evoke feelings of power and strength and from another angle, vulnerabilty and weakness, was relocated to the Rijnkaai close to the Red Star line museum in Antwerp city and now stands on the exact location where the migrants boarded the Red Star line ships on their way to America, some of whom may have felt strong and powerful while others were weak and vulnerable and often turned away. That's where Noreen Donovan met up with the artist Johan Creten, who is also an ex-pat, having emigrated to Paris many years ago to find work, and he told me about the making of Pliny's Sorrow and it's significance for it's new location. While Pliny's Sorrow will not be boarding a ship to move to New York, Johan Creten will! He'll be heading to the Big Apple where he's work will be exhibited later this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B212jtWzj2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnNA1z70-Z8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnGkea8KnRA http://www.visitantwerpen.be/Bezoekerssite-EN/Visitors/to-do/to-do-sights/to-do-sights-museums/to-do-sights-museums--Red-Star-Line-museum.html