Sea Music: the restoration of the sculpture can start.

The Poole Museum (United-Kingdom) just announced, with a lot of enthusiasm, that they successfully obtained their Stage 2 Heritage Lottery Fund status, which will allow them to refurbish Anthony Caro’s Sea Music, a monumental 36-foot high steel sculpture. The artwork, which was installed in 1991 on the Quay of Poole, a coastal town of Southern England, was originally commissioned by the Poole Arts Council. The piece was then gifted by the artist to the town and became a landmark for its residents. 

Sea Music is Anthony Caro’s only outdoor site-specific sculpture and it has been exposed to the coastal weather since its installation. Poole undergoes heavy rainfalls, even during the dryest months. Sea Music’s proximity to the sea has also contributed to its salt corrosion. Twenty-five years after its installation, the sculpture’s steel structure and color are showing signs of decay.

The €275,778 collected thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund (€227,972) and the ACE (Arts Council England) (€47,806) are intended to fund several projects: refurbish the work’s structure, repaint it with the shade blue originally used by Caro, change the color of its platform to better display the sculpture, implement educational workshops and mediation projects with the public, particularly with local residents, and fund events celebrating the work’s restoration.

You can follow the project’s developments as well as initiatives that have been implemented on the Sea Music Project page of the Poole Museum’s website.