Lisa Roet's sculpture of a golden snub-nosed monkey is showcased on a building in Beijing's Sanlitun area. (Photo provided to China Daily)
A giant golden monkey climbing a green glass building in Beijing's downtown attracts a lot of eyeballs, and bystanders liken this scene to King Kong looking at an urban landscape from the top of a building. For its maker, Lisa Roet, an Australian artist whose inspiration comes from primate research, the giant inflated golden monkey is a symbol of global warming－to remind humanity we're displacing animals, including our relatives that share 99 percent of our DNA, says Roet. The first golden monkey show was staged in February in Melbourne.
Then, a 9-meter-high golden monkey was placed atop the parliament to mark the Chinese Year of Monkey in Melbourne.
Now, a 14-meter version of it is in China, climbing a wall of Opposite House, a hotel in Beijing's Sanlitun area.
The inflated golden monkey work is based on the golden snub-nosed monkey discovered in 2010 on the border between China's Yunnan province and northern Myanmar. No more than 400 survive.
They were found because villagers heard them sneezing.
Typically, snub-nosed monkeys are found in high-altitude areas.
