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What if one day you saw in the far off distance a huge yellow “rubber” ducky floating your way? Would you be scared? Would you be surprised? Excited? Flabbergasted? Awestruck?

I’ll tell you what! If I saw this huge yellow floating duck coming at me, I’d swim or paddle towards it and try to hitch a ride on its back!!

This large duck is an art piece by Florentijn Hofman entitled “Rubber Duck“. It was launched in 2007 at Loire, France and it is 26 x 20 x 32 meters. Incredible piece of work!

A yellow spot on the horizon slowly approaches the coast. People have gatherd and watch in amazement as a giant yellow Rubber Duck approaches. The spectators are greeted by the duck, which slowly nods its head. The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn’t discriminate people and doesn’t have a political connotation. The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties: it can relieve mondial tensions as well as define them. The rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages!

Florentijn Hofman’s work is often in larger-than-life scale (and having to deal with animals of some sort). I browsed through his website and found these items worth noting:

• the large musk rat – simply because it was huge
• the building painted blue – because it showed people a new way of looking at an old structure. He transformed this real space from one of the most overlooked locations in Rotterdam, to one of the most photographed and visited…simply by painting it blue!
• the TNT van and the DHL van – he conned people into thinking that he was on official business just by painting his van with the logo of a well-known company. As he states, “Although I never pay any parking fee and don’t have a parking license, I never got fined for doing so. This work questions as well as proves the power of a logo in public space.” True.
• the stuck pig – it’s just funny that he created this exhibit for the world’s smallest museum.

Fantastic work! I would love to see the “Rubber Duck” stateside one day.