![Iain Ball — [Rare Earth Sculptures] Lanthanum (Installation I)](https://rtwaymdozgnhgluydsys.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/artwork-images/1ECACE27-1B9D-484F-8B7E-F2157347C9BE/0B9EC0B3-6138-4114-8B77-EB1CE7F46296/5EAB6B4D-A663-479E-ACCC-38571D58EA5F.jpg)
[Rare Earth Sculptures] Lanthanum (Installation I)
2014
[Rare Earth Sculptures] Lanthanum (Installation I, 2014) is a 1/1 documentation photograph from Iain Ball’s ENERGY⋮PANGEA Legacy Archive. The work captures the stealth sculpture installed as a decorative object in Obicà Mozzarella Bar, Canary Wharf — a donut-shaped, inflatable-like form with four extended protrusions, rendered in polystyrene, fiberglass and acrylic, covered in gestural children’s scribbles and displayed on a rotating product stand. Operating as affective camouflage within corporate consumer space, Lanthanum entangles the hidden materiality of rare earths (key to hybrid-car batteries) with a speculative reverse swarm-funded entity, The Centre for Youth Consciousness. The documentation itself functions as a live node in the larger sculptural system, continuing to probe youth perception, green-tech extraction, and the co-option of consciousness within late-capitalist ecologies.
- Medium
- Archival Documentation Photograph, Sculpture Relic, NFT (Ethereum)
- Signed
- Yes
- Condition
- Excellent
- Provenance
- Created by Iain Ball, 2014, as part of the Rare Earth Sculptures cycle within ENERGY⋮PANGEA. Minted as 1/1 ERC-721 NFT on Ethereum via Manifold (Token ID: 3) in the ENERGY⋮PANGEA Legacy Archive contract. Directly from the artist’s collection. Artist-retained since creation. Full on-chain provenance is publicly verifiable on Manifold and Etherscan.
- Location
- Ethereum/Arweave + Original Installation Site At Obicà Mozzarella Bar, Canary Wharf
Notes
This piece might be titled "Lanthanum (Installation I)", created in 2014
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More by Iain Ball
Collectors with works by Iain Ball
Artists in conversation

Michael Landy
British · b. 1963

Landy similarly deploys sculptural and installation strategies within commercial and everyday environments to critique consumerism and corporate culture, using mundane objects as vehicles for sharp political and social commentary.

Banksy
British · b. 1974

Like Ball's stealth sculpture embedded within a corporate restaurant setting, Banksy infiltrates public and institutional spaces with visually disarming works that use accessible aesthetics including childlike mark making to deliver subversive political and environmental messages.

Jimmie Durham
American · b. 1940

Durham worked with hybrid sculptural objects combining industrial and gestural surface treatments to interrogate systems of value, display, and cultural power, closely mirroring Ball's strategy of placing ambiguous sculptural relics within spaces of economic and social authority.
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