Original artwork description:

Spring Elephant is a mixed media sculpture from series "Salammbô. Le royaume perdu", based on French novelist Gistave Flaubert's historical novel "Salammbô". This is one of four elephant heads, dedicated to elephants which were used in ancient Carthage as heavy armed living tanks. Using a technique form marionette theater, the elephant floats in the air, hanged in strings. It can be exposed in space in sleeping position or worn as a carnival accessory.
The great French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), whose 200th anniversary was celebrated on 2021, also goes to Carthage to seek refuge - in this case from the uproar caused by his previous novel "Madame Bovary". Flaubert travels around North Africa, thoroughly gets to know the testimonies of historians, orientalists and archaeologists of his time; more than four years of studies culminate in a novel centered on the mercenary revolt in Carthage (240-238 AD) between the First and Second Punic Wars, as well as the femme fatale, the warlord Hamilcar Barca's (died around 228 AD) daughter Salammbô, priestess of the goddess Tanita. An inextricable tangle of passions is intertwined around her.
Curator of the exhibition: Ilze Andresone
Photos from the exhibition: Ivars Puķe

Materials used:

Papier mache, fabric, textile, crystals, beads

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