Ceramic shard sculpture. Afranio Fonseca de Paula. 2009

A broken Manneken Pis statue (a statue of a small boy urinating) made of cement was found dumped in a rubbish bin near the canal. The Brazilian Afranio Fonseca de Paula, the man who discovered it, used the object as the basis for a flexible interpretation of Brussels' most famous character.

Bits and pieces

The artist collected together pieces of chipped crockery left on the Flea Market, which is held every day in the Marolles district of Brussels, recycling the items to give them a second lease of life. Taking his cue from the art of mosaic he created a series of shards to cover the cement statue and change the way it looked. The pieces were skilfully adapted: a handle became a lock of hair, the spout of a teapot the Manneken Pis' penis ...

Details to discover

What the object is portraying is initially camouflaged by the statue's unified structure and the lightness created by the ceramic' white colour. You have to look at it for quite a while before you realise it represents the Manneken Pis. A careful examination of the work reveals a whole host of amusing details, such as the initials M P concealed in the back.

Next step

A little further on, Manneken-Pis is waiting for you in a Japanese costume.