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LOOK: Nek Chand's Rock Garden
Art takes many forms, but often, the media remain the same. Not so in Chandigarh, India, where an unlikely artist, 82-year-old...
09.16.09
In the late 1950s, Chand, a road inspector from what is now Pakistan, began collecting electrical sockets, broken bangles, burnt-out bulbs, blown tires, and other bits of waste that had accumulated around Chandigarh. By 1965, working nights and weekends to avoid police detection, Chand had constructed an illicit sculpture garden, reworking found rubbish into hundreds of male, female, and animal figurines-some with real hair collected from barber shops-in a jungle clearing behind his home.Amazingly, the secret garden wasn't discovered until 1973, almost 15 years after he'd started the project. Officials found themselves in a bit of a pickle: Technically, it was illegally-occupying government land. Fortunately for Chand, and for us, a few enlightened officers weren't opposed to bending the rules. Not only was the project saved, Chand was given a salary and 50 laborers to dedicate himself full-time to the project, which was officially opened in 1976.
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