Moscow says no to weird, gigantic shrubbery head

Among all the art installations that make up this year's “Moscow Spring” festival, the greatest excitement (and disgust) has surrounded an installation called “Spring's Youth” at Pushkin Square, which featured a gigantic head and hand created using topiary (with trimmed and shaped shrubs).

The festival officially kicked off on Friday, April 22, and already by that evening the city's officials were reportedly making plans to relocate the “infamous” head and arm to the less visible Strastnoy Boulevard. (The city was considering this, despite comments by the festival's organizers that the controversial installation would remain in its place until the end of the summer.)

On Saturday, April 23, the scandalous shrubbery disappeared from central Moscow altogether: the installation was relocated to the street outside the “Kaleidoscope” shopping center near the Skhodnenskaya subway station, 10 miles from downtown. Internet users soon discovered it and started sharing photographs.

“Spring's Youth” is the name of the entire installation at Pushkin Square. On the festival's website, the greenery shaped like a woman's head and hand was called the installation's “central decoration.” With that gone, what's left is a giant Easter egg adorned with rabbit ears and there's also a large ivy-covered frame, behind which passersby can pose for photographs. (You can see the “before” and “after” pictures here.)

One of the festival's organizers told the news website Gazeta.ru that the people who designed the installation (artists based in St. Petersburg) choose its location remotely, without “fully grasping how it would look in reality.”

If you're trying to imagine a setting where such art might seem more at home, check out the “Mother Earth” installation at the Montreal Botanical Gardens in Canada.