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The Lamb Banana has fast become one of the most instantly recognisable and popular symbols of the City of Liverpool. Like the television and the iPod, every home should have one, if not more...
The Super Lamb Banana was the original work of Japanese-based artist Taro Chiezo. Commissioned for the Art Transpennine Exhibition of 1998, the sculpture was a controversial, but welcome addition to the public art arena in Liverpool. Standing an impressive seventeen feet tall and comprised of concrete and steel, the statue first attracted interest from its original position on the Strand. The unusual artwork was created to warn of the dangers of genetically modified food, whilst being approriate to the city of Liverpool due to the port's rich history in the trade of lambs and the import of bananas.
As with much modern art, there was initially a degree of scepticism around the Lamb Banana , but residents and tourists alike quickly began to see the unusual artwork as a welcome and humorous feature of the city at a time of much change and large-scale regeneration. Always intended as a piece which would change location around the city centre, it was perhaps less well predicted that the sculpture would see quite such a range of colours during its time. From the Breakthrough charity sponsored "pink" period to the quasi-vandalism that turned it temporarily into a Friesian cow banana, the range of Blue Gnu's ceramic replicas has tracked these changes, with the limited edition Lamb Bananas becoming highly collectible items... Watch out for new limited editions on superlambbanana.com