Hare on Elephant

Barry Flanagan's iconic Nijinsky hare is positioned on the back of an elephant exhibiting a playful juxtaposition of the agile light dancer contrasted by its weighty companion. It was at the end of the 1970s when Flanagan was driving past a field in Sussex noticing a leaping hare. Inspired by the freedom and playfulness of the animal Flanagan began incorporating the hare as re-occurring motif within his practice: 'Thematically the choice of the hare is quite a rich and expressive sort of model ... And on a practical level, if you consider what conveys situation and meaning and feeling in a human figure, the range of expression is in fact far more limited than the device of investing an animal -a hare especially- with the expressive attributes of a human being.' (Barry Flanagan, quoted in H.-J. Schwalm, "When hares can dance and balance", Barry Flanagan, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, 2003).