The Scout: What the cluck? Giant rooster lands in our backyard

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A recent post on urban chicken farming by this blog’s mother hen, Deborah Netburn, detailed the ‘escalating chicken wars’ between neighbors who have joined the flock and those who are going cuckoo living near a poultry ranch.

Here’s one amusing and vegan alternative that’ll give your backyard the look of chickens without the mess and noise. His name is Kekazze, a rotationally molded plastic rooster with a punk rock Mohawk and high-tops. (See a detailed shot after the jump.) He won’t wake up the neighbors, but at just over 4 feet tall, he might alarm passersby. The indoor-outdoor piece by Italian artist-designer Omar Ronda is created as a signed and numbered work in a limited edition from Casamania and sells for $750 at Functions, 1454 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 451-4284.

Hop to the jump for a close-up look and information on the tabletop version.

Kekazze is one of the first commercially available works to emerge from the European art collective Cracking Art. The group recycles plastics to create impressively rendered, vividly colored, larger-than-life animals. (See a cool video of one of its Pop art installations.)

Though Kekazze certainly qualifies as a whimsy, there is an intellectual discourse at work in the creation of this rooster-zilla.

Designer Omar Ronda explains that plastic, which is derived from petroleum, is ‘the natural repository of the the planet’s entire history of organic life forms’ and that plastic animals turn ‘life back in its tracks.’ Which certainly sounds like a cool reply to anyone who asks why you spent $750 on a giant cluck.

If you like the concept but are short on chicken scratch, don’t despair. Functions can also special order an illuminated tabletop version that’s about half the height -- and the cost.

-- David A. Keeps

Photo credits: Courtesy of Functions