20 Impactful sculptures whose meanings make us reflect on humanity

The world of art is quite rich and diverse, and sculptures are one of its many forms of expression. However, there are those that you go through and just forget almost immediately, and there are those that are marked in the soul. Artistic expression goes beyond facts and reason and, therefore, can attract the attention of millions of people to problems that normally go unnoticed by society. Impactful sculptures, their meanings and secrets are the subject of this post.

O awesome.club created a list of several sculptures that have a strong theme and seek to make us reflect on the world we live in. Follow!

Surely you have noticed that this work was created as a message about care and environmental responsibility. It is located in one of the most picturesque places in Switzerland — the commune of Glarona, in the Glarus region. And the vibrant and breathtaking nature of this place leaves us thinking of nothing else but the preservation of this environment. The authors of the sculpture are Eva Oertli and Beat Huber.

The sculpture is made up of 4 large, rusty cubes made of iron and glass, and resembles an old, broken toy house. Its name “The Wounded Star” (La Estrella Herida, in Spanish) is not by chance. The work represents a requiem of its creator about everything that no longer exists: the unfulfilled dreams, the places that were once full of life, but today are empty, and everything that could have happened, but never did. And the main thing — the sculpture represents youth, which quickly passes, leaving only memories.

Its location was also not chosen at random: right there, near the sea in the Barceloneta neighborhood, there was a slum and the poorest fishing village in the city. There, several poor families lived in huts and shacks along the beach, and while the men went to seek sustenance at sea, serenades were sung in the sand. Some time later, the whole place ended up being taken over by the famous beach kiosks, affectionately called “chiringuitos” in Spanish. However, they were all demolished by renovations before the 1992 Summer Olympics, and thus the city lost some of its character. Now Sant Miquel beach has a clear view, with no trace of its past lives and the people who once lived there. Except for the monument to lost dreams.

British artist Gali May Lucas’ work for the Amsterdam Festival of Lights was designed to draw society’s attention to the modern obsession with technology and people’s addiction to their cell phones. In the sculpture, 3 people are sitting on a bench in the most common poses for heavy smartphone users — heads tilted down while typing text messages. An interesting detail is that the faces of the 3 people are illuminated by the screens of their devices. According to the author, her intention was to convey the idea that people are constantly attracted to the lights on cell phone screens, however, they not only bring information, but distance us from the real world around us.

Depending on the tide on the River Thames in London, 4 horsemen can appear on its bank. Author and environmentalist Jason deCaires Taylor created this sculpture to draw public attention to humanity’s excessive dependence on oil, and to remind society of how modern industry influences climate change. In case you haven’t noticed, instead of the horses’ heads, there are oil extraction pumps. The characters in suits riding on the horses at the ends looking at the horizon are a direct reference to politicians and big businessmen, who ignore the environmental problems caused by their unrestrained exploitation of natural resources.

This sculpture is dedicated to the unique love story of Luigi Peduto and Mokryna Yurzuk, whose feelings overcame the problems of time and distance. The pair met in 1943 in a prisoner of war camp in Austria, and when the conflicts in Europe ended, the couple were separated. They then continued their lives, created families, but never forgot about each other. Almost 60 years later, Luigi found his beloved through the TV show Wait for me (in free translation).

When the couple were reunited, both were over 80 years old. Luigi offered all his love and asked Mokryna to marry him, but unfortunately, they ended up not having enough time to get married. The sculpture became the symbol of eternal love. And a copy of the Kiev work was installed in the city of Luigi — Castel San Lorenzo.

The monument was made on the initiative of the Russian squad for the search for the missing Liza Alert. In the lower part of the hourglass there is a sad doll, creating the image of a child around 6 years old, while in the upper part there is only sand. The work’s message is that every second counts and is important in the search for missing children.

This symbol of helpless children has traveled to different cities in Russia and is now installed in the Kaluga Cultural and Innovation Center.

Liza Alert volunteers change the doll’s clothes inside the monument according to the seasons, highlighting the identification difficulties encountered by the squad in the search for children at each time of the year.

The “Floating Orange Tree” (Suspended Orange Tree, in the original in English) is located in the old center of Jaffa. The orange is a special fruit for Israel. When the country was created, in 1948, it was thanks to the export of citrus fruits that it was possible to keep the economy active. The tree was planted in an egg-shaped clay container and suspended by ropes between the buildings on the site.

Ran Morin, the author of the work, claims that it is very similar to human beings, who are so enthusiastic about advancing industrialization and technological progress that they have lost their roots — their connection with nature. But like this tree, we are still growing, trying to reach higher levels of development and losing more and more of the space where our roots should be growing. There is yet another interpretation for the meaning of the work: the orange tree with no fixed place on the ground represents the migrations of the Jewish people and the difficulties of the immigrants.

On one of the city’s banks, you can find a sculpture of a man in a beret, standing with his hands in his pockets and… crying. As you approach her, you can see that real tears are streaming from her eyes down her cheeks. The work was created according to sketches by artist and film director Marie-Louise Ekman, and is called Det Svenska Tungsinnet (“The Swedish Language”, in Portuguese). The Swedish actor Gösta Ekman was the model for the creation of the sculpture, who curiously was also Marie-Louise’s husband.

The work wants to convey the message that men in the modern world must endure all of life’s difficulties, from crises to depression, without losing heart.

This monument is located on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. Its author is the Russian artist Mihail Chemiakin. It is made up of 15 sculptures and symbolizes the fight against evil and against social vices. In it, children are surrounded by monsters that represent adult vices, such as chemical dependency, violence, ignorance and alcoholism.

Robbery, for example, is symbolized by the figure of a man with the head of a boar carrying a bag of money. Sadism—a rhinoceros dressed as a butcher. And the sculpture of a knight with wings, wearing armor, a gas mask and holding a bomb, represents war. In the center of the composition is a sculpture that symbolizes indifference — its body is shaped like a sarcophagus, its arms are covering its ears and its eyes are closed.

The 26 sculptures of children that make up the work “Vicissitudes” are one of the most impressive compositions that have become part of the underwater museum on the west coast of Grenada. The main objective of the museum is the recovery of the local marine fauna and flora, which are under serious environmental risk. Thus, the statues become an artificial surface where corals and seaweed can settle and develop. The entire composition weighs 15 tons, allowing it to withstand marine currents and tidal flows. The circle of children symbolizes the cycle of life and humanity’s responsibility for preserving the environment for future generations.

As part of the “For Life” movement, an exhibition of 27 baby sculptures was set up in Riga, Latvia. Their number is not by chance — according to statistics, this is the approximate daily amount of abortions performed daily in the country. The purpose of the exhibition was to inform families about abortion and its consequences.

Next to each sculpture there is a small pedestal with a text written in 3 languages ​​(English, Latvian and Russian), explaining the reasons why people decide to have an abortion. For example, in one of them the situation is written when a woman already has a child, she is pregnant and her husband has died, and, therefore, she decides that she cannot properly raise and educate two children alone, deciding to have an abortion and so guarantee a dignified future for at least one of the children. Already on another pedestal is the story of a woman who got the flu during pregnancy, and ended up having an abortion on medical advice.

The sculpture “Empathy” was installed at the Mendeleevskaya metro station. Its authors are the Russian sculptor Alexander Tsigal, the animalist artist Sergey Tsigal, the architect Andrey Nalich and the designer Peter Nalich. The work is dedicated to a stray dog ​​named Malchik, who lived in this Moscow metro station until his death. His violent manner of death caused a great social commotion in the city. At the base of the monument is written: “Empathy. Dedicated to a more humane treatment for stray animals”.

In London’s famous Trafalgar square, there are 4 pillars with traditional bronze monuments. The fourth pillar, however, has become a landmark for the popularization of modern art — the sculptures on it are constantly…