Olek Sinks Crochet Bomb Sculpture Off Cancun Coast

The street artist Olek, known to many as the poster-artist of the yarn-bombing movement, has installed one of her characteristically polychromatic works on the bottom of the Caribbean sea. The underwater, crochet-wrapped sculpture is in the shape of a large cartoon bomb. It was created alongside works by Jason deCaires Taylor in Cancun’s Underwater Museum at Aquaworld. A group of Taylor’s works already on site, mine-shaped sculptures titled Time Bomb, are similarly intended to call attention to the urgency of saving our environment.

Putting the finishing touches on Olek’s bomb sculpture at the Underwater Museum.
Photo: Olek/Instagram.

Though this is certainly Olek’s most logistically challenging crochet installation, it’s hardly her most daring. In the wee hours of Christmas Day, 2010, she wrapped the iconic Wall Street Bull sculpture in an enveloping sweater of bring pink yarn. And in 2012, in observance of her own birthday, the Brooklyn-based artist similarly sheathed Fernando Botero’s sculpture of a curvaceous cat in Barcelona with her signature couture.

The below-sea-level institution, located in the shallow waters off the Yucatan Peninsula resort destination, already features a half-dozen sculptures by Taylor, as well as works by Salvador Quiroz and Rodrigo Quiñones.