A fork in a lake. A shark in a roof. A portrait hidden inside fifty steel columns.

These twelve sculptures use cliffs, shadows, water, buildings, and even the viewer’s position as part of the work. Some are permanent landmarks; the Knife Angel travels from city to city.

🎶 “Mélodie oubliée” — By Luo Li Rong

In this workshop photo, Luo Li Rong uses a torch on the bronze surface of Mélodie oubliée. The finished work is 205 cm tall and weighs 250 kg, according to Horus Gallery.

💡 Nerd Fact: Horus Gallery lists the bronze as an edition of eight, plus four artist’s proofs.

🔗 See the finished work at Horus Gallery

⚔️ “Gallos” — By Rubin Eynon at Tintagel Castle, England 🇬🇧

At the edge of Tintagel Castle, the cloak, hands, and sword stay solid while most of the body opens onto sea and sky. English Heritage describes the eight-foot bronze as inspired by both the legend of King Arthur and the historic kings and royal figures associated with Tintagel. Photo: Gary Perkin / Shutterstock.

💡 Nerd Fact: Gallos took six months to design, sculpt, and cast in bronze, according to English Heritage. Its name means “power” in Cornish.

🔗 See Gallos at Tintagel Castle

🕊️ “Release” — By Marco Cianfanelli with architect Jeremy Rose in Howick, South Africa 🇿🇦

At the Nelson Mandela Capture Site on the R103 near Howick, Release is a forest of vertical steel. From one point on the approach, fifty columns align into Nelson Mandela’s portrait. Walk closer and the face dissolves back into separate lines. Photo: Matthew Willman, via Marco Cianfanelli.

💡 Nerd Fact: The installation marked fifty years since Mandela’s arrest at this site in 1962. Its fifty laser-cut columns range from 6 to 9.5 metres high.

🔗 Visit the Nelson Mandela Capture Site · Artist’s project page

🗡️ “Knife Angel” — By Alfie Bradley and the British Ironwork Centre in the UK 🇬🇧

The 27-foot figure was assembled from about 100,000 knives and blades collected through amnesties and surrenders across Britain. The British Ironwork Centre created the concept, and Alfie Bradley sculpted it with the centre’s team. Also known as the National Monument Against Violence & Aggression, it tours the UK. Photo: John K Thorne / Wikimedia Commons (CC0).

💡 Nerd Fact: Families of victims were invited to engrave some of the blades with messages of hope, love, and disbelief. The engraved blades can be seen in the wings.

More: Made of 100,000 knives removed from UK streets

🔗 Visit the official Knife Angel page · Follow the official tour schedule

💧 “Rain” — By Nazar Bilyk in Kyiv, Ukraine 🇺🇦

At Landscape Alley in Kyiv, a bronze man looks up with a single glass drop resting on his face. In a 2019 interview, Bilyk said Rain is about calm and self-absorption — looking inward and upward. His own selected-works catalogue dates it to 2010.

💡 Nerd Fact: Bilyk said public versions of Rain had also been installed in a Massachusetts park, Cape Town, and Étretat, France.

🔗 See Rain in Nazar Bilyk’s catalogue

🌅 “Sangsaeng’s Hand” — By Kim Seung-guk at Homigot Sunrise Square in Pohang, South Korea 🇰🇷

The hand rising from the sea is only half of sculptor Kim Seung-guk’s work. At Homigot Sunrise Square, a left hand on land faces the right hand in the water. VisitKorea dates the two-part bronze sculpture to December 1999 and says it expresses sangsaeng — coexistence through people helping one another. Photo: Mobius6 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0; resized).

💡 Nerd Fact: Homigot literally means “tiger’s tail.” The name comes from 16th-century geomancer Nam Sa-go’s comparison of the Korean Peninsula to a tiger. The sculpture was unveiled on 1 January 2000 to mark the new millennium.

🔗 VisitKorea: Homigot Sunrise Square

✨ “Star Seeder” — By Morfai in Kaunas, Lithuania 🇱🇹

At K. Donelaičio g. 64, Morfai added stars to the wall behind Bernardas Bučas’s 1939 version of The Sower. After dark, the lighting casts the figure’s shadow over the stars, making the old statue appear to sow them.

💡 Nerd Fact: Kaunas city says Morfai’s first stars were painted over in 2008, the same year they appeared. The work returned through the Kauno akcentai competition in 2017. The deputy mayor called it probably the first time a work of street art had been legalised in Lithuania.

More: The story and more photos of The Seeder

🔗 Kaunas IN: Star Seeder

🪑 “Iucundi acti labores” — By Iris Le Rütte in Oldenzaal, the Netherlands 🇳🇱

At Kalheupink Park, two gold-coloured hands hold up a bronze cloth that forms a bench. The foundation that manages the park says the drapery refers to Oldenzaal’s textile history and gives visitors a place to rest. Iris Le Rütte’s official page dates the three-metre-wide work to 2003. Photo: Henk Hekman, via Iris Le Rütte.

💡 Nerd Fact: The park foundation says the bench came from Oldenzaal’s service clubs. The plan for more public art followed the city’s 750th-anniversary celebrations.

🔗 Visit Iris Le Rütte’s project page

🪞 “Metalmorphosis” — By David Černý in Charlotte, USA 🇺🇸

At Whitehall Corporate Center, this polished 2007 kinetic fountain sits in a reflecting pool. Its seven horizontal segments can rotate independently, breaking the face into moving bands before they line up again.

💡 Nerd Fact: Černý traces the idea to a series of about twenty heads he made in the 1980s.

🔗 Visit the official Metalmorphosis site

☁️ “Diminish and Ascend” — By David McCracken in Christchurch, New Zealand 🇳🇿

An aluminium staircase rises from Kiosk Lake in Christchurch Botanic Gardens. McCracken describes it as a perspective illusion: the steps narrow until the upper end appears to continue into the sky. Photo: Michal Klajban / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0; resized).

💡 Nerd Fact: McCracken says the work began as an idea for a performance in which the protagonist would grow smaller while ascending, perhaps using shadow puppetry or projection.

🔗 SCAPE Public Art: Diminish and Ascend

🦈 “Untitled 1986” (The Headington Shark) — By John Buckley and Bill Heine in Oxford, England 🇬🇧

On 9 August 1986, a 25-foot (7.6-metre) fibreglass-and-steel shark appeared headfirst in the roof at 2 New High Street in Headington. The shark and house form a single artwork, conceived by homeowner Bill Heine with sculptor John Buckley. Photo: Set in Stone Project / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0; resized).

💡 Nerd Fact: The installation date was chosen to coincide with the 41st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It then triggered a six-year planning battle before being allowed to remain.

🔗 Read the story from the Shark House

🍴 “La Fourchette” — By Jean-Pierre Zaugg in Vevey, Switzerland 🇨🇭

An eight-metre stainless-steel fork stands upright in Lake Geneva, five metres off Quai Perdonnet outside the Alimentarium. Jean-Pierre Zaugg designed the 450 kg work for the museum’s tenth anniversary in 1995; Georges Favre fabricated it. Photo: Markus Schweizer / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0; resized).

💡 Nerd Fact: The Alimentarium says La Fourchette has held the Guinness World Record for the tallest fork since 2014. The previous record belonged to a 2.15-metre fork in Tsubame, Japan.

🔗 Read La Fourchette’s history at the Alimentarium

Which one is your favorite?