Woinic, Steel sculpture in Saulces-Monclin, France
Woinic is a wild boar made from steel standing in Saulces-Monclin, rising about three stories tall, as long as a bus, and roughly twice the width of a car. Its grey metal skin is formed from many individually welded steel plates that shine when the sun hits them.
Sculptor Eric Sleziak built the animal between 1983 and 1993 in Bogny-sur-Meuse, where he spent over ten thousand hours welding together thousands of steel pieces. The sculpture was later moved to its current location along the motorway, where travelers can see it from the roadside.
The name Woinic contracts the first names of the sculptor's parents, Woidouche and Nicole. In Ardennes dialect the work is called "la statüe du Woinic". The departmental council registered Woinic as a trademark for its merchandise, and in 2015 the Monnaie de Paris struck tourist tokens showing the boar, sold at the rest area and at the Ardennes shop in Charleville-Mézières.
The sculpture stands along the A34 motorway between Rethel and Charleville-Mézières, where parking and rest areas are available. Vehicles can stop to view the animal up close, especially on clear days when the metal plates are fully visible.
The construction required over 400 spools of welding wire and more than 300 gas bottles to join the thousands of steel plates together. Each plate was cut, shaped, and welded into place individually, so the animal's surface forms a kind of metal mosaic.
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