Meet Couch Monster: Sadzěʔ yaaghęhch’ill, a bold new sculpture by acclaimed contemporary artist Brian Jungen. This work is the museum’s first ever public art commission, and will be situated at the corner of Dundas and McCaul Streets – the former setting for Henry Moore’s Large Two Forms (1966–1969).
Jungen is renowned for his artworks made of repurposed consumer goods and modelled this work from second-hand leather furniture – the pieces of which are fully visible. The sculpture measures five and a half meters long, and is located adjacent to the AGO. A monument to creative form and engineering, this sculpture is his first large-scale work in bronze.
Intrigued by the tragic story of Jumbo, a captive circus elephant who made international headlines when it was killed by a train in St. Thomas, Ontario, in 1885, Jungen is deeply concerned with the terrible price all living things pay when forced to perform for others. That concern is embedded in the title of the work.
Jungen is a British Columbia-based artist of European and Indigenous heritage (Dane-zaa) whose extensive body of work engages with both Indigenous materials and traditions, Western art history and popular culture.
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