Rubber Duck (sculpture)

Rubber Duck refers to any of several giant floating sculptures designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman. These were built in various sizes, ranging from the prototype, which measured 1 inch, to the one created in 2007 that is the largest rubber duck in the world.

The creator and designer of the Rubber Duck sculpture is Florentijn Hofman. He is a Dutch public artist who is actively working throughout the whole world. He was born in the Netherlands on April 16, 1977. He finished secondary school in Emmen and went to an art school that is located in Kampen. He mastered in art at Berlin-Weissensee, Berlin. He mostly worked on reproducing objects that we can usually see around us, in a huge size. A characteristic of Florentijn Hofman's work is that he makes objects with things that we see or use often, including laminate flooring and flip-flops. With these sculptures, he wants to make people's lives happier, and become unified. The purpose of his art is to promote the message of healing.

The size of the rubber duck is varied. His largest rubber duck, in Saint Nazaire, was measured, width, length, height of 26x20x32m. The rubber duck in Beijing was 14x15x18m, and the rubber duck in Seokchon lake was 16.5x19.8x16.5m with a weight of 1000 kg. The rubber duck was constructed with more than 200 pieces of PVC. All the pieces of PVC are connected by hand with sewing machines.

In order to make the durability of the rubber duck stronger, they added another piece on top of one layer. On the rubber duck, there is an opening at the back of the body so that architects and staff can perform a body check of the rubber duck. In addition, there is an electric propeller fan in its body so that it can be inflated at any time, in either good or bad weather. The electric propeller fan also keeps the air circulating inside of the rubber duck, so that the air always keeps the shape of the rubber duck sculpture.

The loops that are in the pontoon edges of the rubber duck are connected to the fence of the lake by 16 ropes. These 16 ropes can hold the rubber duck still without it floating away by the waves of the lake water.

On the bottom of the rubber duck, there is a waterproof cable. The waterproof cable gets the energy from a power distribution board near the lake to make the electric propeller fan work.

Since 2007, the ducks have been on display in Amsterdam, Baku, Lommel (Belgium), Osaka, Sydney Harbour, Sao Paulo and Hong Kong. It was on display in Pittsburgh as its first US destination, from 27 September 2013 through 20 October 2013. Over 1,000,000 people are reported to have visited the duck in Pittsburgh. Its second United States appearance was in Norfolk, Virginia from 17–26 May 2014, floating in The Hague inlet in front of the Chrysler Museum of Art.

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