Salutation Ralph Hicks

Ralph Hicks
Salutation, 2003
Stainless steel, 250 x 550 x 580 centimetres

Ralph Hicks likes to create what he calls "figures with attitudes." In Salutation, an attitude of respectful courtesy is conveyed through a human form reduced to suggestive rectilinear shapes, bowing its head to passing travellers. Hicks tells us very little about his model, providing no indication of race, class or even sex. But, he also asks little in return, extending the gesture of salutation indiscriminately to any and every potential friend that might pass by. The simple cuboid, favoured by Hicks for its "immediate and striking" appearance, is the only shape required to give life to Salutation's purely positive greeting.

Hicks' original conception called for a group of five figures like Salutation but each standing 30 feet tall. If Toronto had been chosen to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, each of these figures was to be placed at one of the city's five major entranceways.