Matt Cardy / Getty Images

Sean Henry's sculpture Man with Cup (2008) is exhibited on the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral on August 2, 2011 in Salisbury, United Kingdom. The exhibition, 'Conflux: A Union of the Sacred and the Anonymous', features over 20 contemporary sculptures of dramatically different scales occupying vacant plinths and open spaces on both the inside and exterior of the iconic 13th century building. This exhibition brings to the Cathedral the biggest single group of polychrome sculpture since the Reformation and runs until the end of October.

Placing modern figures in an ancient church

If you ever visited an old cathedral with missing statues or broken off gargoyles, you've probably tried to imagine what was once there. But did you ever imagine putting something there you created yourself?

The artist Sean Henry told the U.K's arts guide, Culture 24, “By placing my figures on existing empty plinths and platforms and in areas where other, older sculptures would once have stood I’m interested in memorialising the everyday - in drawing the viewer’s attention to the significance of our own experience of the here and now."

More news from Salisbury Cathedral.

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Brilliant!

We need more of this everywhere!

    Reply#1 - Tue Aug 2, 2011 11:41 AM EDT

    I agree that it is a really cute idea. Placing modern day sculptures next to older ones really makes you pause to appreciate the past and the present simultaneously. In some ways it also brought the mundane to life.

      Reply#2 - Tue Aug 2, 2011 1:52 PM EDT
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