{"id":775490,"date":"2026-07-21T08:19:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T08:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/775490\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T08:19:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T08:19:18","slug":"6-strange-shark-statues-around-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/775490\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Strange Shark Statues Around the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sharks<\/a> are as fascinating as they are misunderstood<\/a>. Thanks to their large razor-sharp teeth and their prominence in horror movies\u2014Steven Spielberg\u2019s Jaws<\/a> (1975) being the most famous example\u2014it\u2019s easy to see why they\u2019ve developed a killer reputation, despite not actually being responsible<\/a> for all that many human deaths. <\/p>\n

But while some people are terrified of sharks, others have been inspired to create artworks of the big toothy fish. So in honor of Shark Week<\/a> 2026\u2014which starts later this week on July 26\u2014here are six unusual shark statues and sculptures around the world that have made waves. <\/p>\n

Sharnana \/\/ Australia<\/a>Sunken Shark Movie Prop \/\/ Switzerland<\/a>The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living \/\/ England and New York<\/a>Chompie \/\/ Maryland<\/a>The Headington Shark \/\/ England<\/a>Sharks! \/\/ England<\/a>Sharnana \/\/ Australia<\/p>\n

For a few weeks in 2024, visitors to Sydney\u2019s Bondi Beach could view a great white shark<\/a> bursting out of a peeled banana. Created by Drew McDonald, the strange sculpture\u2014appropriately titled Sharnana\u2014was displayed as part of the Sculpture by the Sea art exhibition and won<\/a> both the Allens People\u2019s Choice Award and the Kids\u2019 Choice Prize.<\/p>\n

The shark-banana hybrid is made out of recycled plastic, steel, and calcium carbonate and is a little over seven feet long and four feet tall. So why did McDonald want to merge the fish and fruit in the first place? <\/p>\n

\u201cTo stop, admire and question the reality of a shark coming out of a peeled banana is to question what it means to exist on a rock floating in space,\u201d the artist explains<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve always seen life as absurd. I want my art to be absurd too, but in a joyous, engaging way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Sharnana only enjoyed a brief stint by the sea, the statue can still be viewed at Moon Mountain Sanctuary<\/a>\u2014a farm in Queensland for rescue horses that is also an open-air art gallery.<\/p>\n

Sunken Shark Movie Prop \/\/ Switzerland<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s oceans are home to all manner of scary things\u2014from creepy deep sea creatures<\/a> to an eerie sunken cemetery<\/a>\u2014but lakes can also hide terrifying objects in their depths. For instance, from the shore, Lake Neuch\u00e2tel in Switzerland looks serene, but anyone who dives beneath the surface will find a terrifying 20-foot-long shark statue lying in wait. <\/p>\n

Although the shark looks fairly cartoonish on a second glance, seeing teeth that big emerge out the darkness must be a chilling experience. The shark has resided at the bottom of the Swiss lake for almost two decades, winding up there after being used as a prop<\/a> in the short film Choc Au Lac! (2007). Presumably, the movie\u2019s crew decided to just leave the shark behind after filming had wrapped\u2014much to the delight of some thrill-seeking divers. <\/p>\n

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living \/\/ England and New York<\/p>\n

Damien Hirst was launched to fame in the 1990s thanks to an art series that utilized dead animals\u2014the most famous of which was a 14-foot-long tiger shark<\/a> suspended in formaldehyde in a glass display case. <\/p>\n

Titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, the artwork cost \u00a350,000 ($67,000) to create, with the shark itself costing \u00a36,000 ($8,000). The tiger shark had been caught off the coast of Australia\u2019s Queensland, with Hirst requesting<\/a> that the fisherman catch him a shark \u201cbig enough to eat you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The artwork was first displayed in 1991 in London\u2019s Saatchi Gallery, but the shark soon started to decay (Hirst thought that the gallery\u2019s curators had added bleach to the tank). In 1993, the shark\u2019s skin was removed and fit over a fiberglass mold, but Hirst was unhappy with the result: \u201cIt didn\u2019t look as frightening\u2026 You could tell it wasn\u2019t real. It had no weight.\u201d <\/p>\n

In 2006, a new shark was caught and a more thorough preservation process was used to ensure that it wouldn\u2019t rot like its predecessor. This version was displayed in New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum of Art between 2007 and 2010. <\/p>\n

Hirst also scarified a few other sharks to star in similar artworks, including a great white shark<\/a> and a basking shark<\/a>. Understandably, this drew the criticism<\/a> of animal rights groups, who estimate that he\u2019s killed almost 1 million animals (a number which includes insects) for his art. <\/p>\n

Chompie \/\/ Maryland<\/p>\n

In 2006, the Discovery Channel decided to celebrate Shark Week in a very special way: by decorating their headquarters in Maryland with a massive inflatable shark<\/a>. Named Chompie, the five pieces of the colossal sea creature are arranged to make it look like it\u2019s swimming through the building; its head is at the front, there are pectoral fins on each side, a dorsal fin on the roof, and a tail at the back. From nose to tail, the shark measures a staggering 446 feet. <\/p>\n

Chompie has been hung on the building a few times over the years, but it\u2019s quite the process to get the huge fish in place. While the pieces are being installed, they have to be constantly inflated\u2014which takes 10 air blowers to achieve. Chompie hasn\u2019t made an appearance since 2012<\/a>\u2014for the 25th anniversary of Shark Week\u2014but hope springs eternal every summer when the iconic week-long TV event rolls around. <\/p>\n

The Headington Shark \/\/ England<\/p>\n

The Headington Shark made quite a splash when it was installed in a quiet suburb of Oxford in 1986. The 25-foot-long shark\u2014made of fiberglass and steel\u2014looks like its diving headfirst through the roof of an ordinary house, inevitably leading to it becoming known as the Shark House.<\/p>\n

The roof-top sculpture was conceived by Bill Heine and created by sculptor John Buckley. Heine\u2019s son and the current homeowner, Magnus Hanson-Heine, explains that the shark was designed as a piece of protest art.<\/a> It was installed on August 9\u2014the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki<\/a>\u2014in opposition to America\u2019s recent bombing of Libya.<\/p>\n

The shark was also purposefully installed without planning permission from the local council. \u201cThey had done that in part so as to make this case that really the council shouldn\u2019t be deciding what kind of art people were and weren\u2019t allowed to see,\u201d explains<\/a> Hanson-Heine. <\/p>\n

As expected, the council immediately attempted to get the sculpture removed, but Heine was a lawyer and after six years he won the court case and got to keep his shark. <\/p>\n

The battle over the Headington Shark didn\u2019t end there though. By 2022, the council had come around on the merits of the marine predator and decided to add it to the Oxford Heritage Asset Register<\/a>\u2014which Hanson-Heine wasn\u2019t happy about, stating that it \u201cgoes against the fundamental point\u201d of the anti-authoritarian art piece. <\/p>\n

Sharks! \/\/ England<\/p>\n

Antepavilion is an arts and architecture charity based in London that has been caught up in numerous legal battles with Hackney London Borough Council over the lack of planning permission for its artworks. In 2020, Antepavilion held a competition for an artwork that commented on the legal trouble and the winner was a sculpture titled Sharks! (yes, the exclamation point is part of the name). <\/p>\n

Designed by architect Jaimie Shorten and inspired<\/a> by the Headington Shark, Sharks! is a collection of five life-sized fiberglass sharks that look like they\u2019re jumping headfirst out of the water. When the sharks were being installed on Regent\u2019s Canal outside Antepavilion\u2019s Hoxton warehouse, Hackney Council got an injunctio<\/a>n to stop the charity and so only four sharks ever made it onto the water. <\/p>\n

A legal battle then ensued over Sharks!\u2014which was partly the point of the piece\u2014and it still hasn\u2019t been resolved. The sharks were removed for a period and then put back out on the water\u2014this time outside Islington Boat Club\u2014before being removed again. As of February 2026, a singular shark <\/a>floats outside Antepavilion\u2019s dockside and only time will tell whether the other four will get to join it. <\/p>\n

More Shark Reads:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sharks are as fascinating as they are misunderstood. Thanks to their large razor-sharp teeth and their prominence in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-775490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}