Tomato soup for the soul as art meets the great unwashed

IT'S October, so there are sculptures at Sydney's Bondi.

IT'S October, so there are sculptures at Sydney's Bondi. They are set up on cliffs and rock shelves, overlooking the sea. They stay two weeks, then get taken away. Some pieces, such as the plywood "Bondi Beach" in tall letters, like the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, are beloved and lamented.

Others, including the sharp thing made of crushed tin cans, are inscrutable and confusing, and when they are gone nobody says: where did that thing go?

From a distance, the crowd looks like a caterpillar edging its way up the coast.

It has many pairs of walking boots on its many feet.

Up close it's people shuffling single-file along the track, looking and making remarks, but their words get caught on the wind and blown towards the sea.

What's left behind are bits of phrases, snippets of the odd idea.

Here, then, verbatim, are fragments of conversations, as recorded by a reporter stationed by the chicken-wire sculpture depicting Andy Warhol's head emerging from a can of Campbell's tomato soup, on the path near Tamarama between 10.30am and 11.15am on the first Sunday of the annual art exhibition known as Sculptures by the Sea:

"Hey, look at that."

"Don't touch it, Riley."

"That one looks rusty."

"A lot of them last year were rusty."

"Where's Louise?"

"You still need a licence for a moped."

"Do you want to go on? I'll wait here with Riley."

"Did you bring water?"

"It's only because I saw the number that I saw it."

"Does it move?"

"Hi, Simone."

"Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, down from 400."

"It's tomato soup."

"It's made of wire."

"Look at how exquisitely everything is done."

"The can of soup. It's an oil drum."

"That's really good, isn't it."

"It's chicken wire."

"Look, Emma. That's a famous artist who painted cans of soup."

"What's it made of?"

"It's Andy Warhol."

"It's made of wire."

"It looks like Keith Richards."

"Should we walk back?"

"I drop the kids at school, I go to work, I come home."

"Did you buy the sculpture book? It tells you what it is."

"He was an artist and he invented like the soup-can art thing."

"Stand next to it."

"It's made of chicken wire."

"It's Andy Warhol and his can of soup."

"There's Hugh Jackman."

"Where?"

"No, for real. There. Look. There. With his wife. White hair."

"Oh, right."

"My sister saw him in Greece once."

"It's wire. Galvanised wire."

"Is there a people's choice? That should win the people's choice."

"Do you need the toilet?"

"It's quite clever how they've made it out of wire."

"You said I could take the picture, Dad."

"Did you see that? It was Hugh Jackman."

"Must be awful: can't go anywhere without people saying: look, Hugh Jackman."

"Look, Ruby, a man in a can."

"Is that my phone?"

"Where's your hat, Dylan?"

"You can't vote on the ones you like. They should let you vote."

"They should have kept the Bondi sign. One year they had a Bondi sign."

"Zach, darling, come back this way."

"It's wire."

"Andy Warhol was an artist and he painted, like, these soup cans."

"Is that your phone?"

"Don't put your finger over the lens."

"Hey, it's Andy Warhol. Is he dead?"

"He's dead."

"When did he die?"

"How much are the books?"

"Look, Hugh Jackman."

"Did this one win? The people's choice last year I voted for."

"Is it chicken wire?"

"What's it got to do with Bondi?"

"'Is this 70? What does it say in the book?"

"It's for sale. 21,000."

"It's made out of chicken wire."

"It's Campbell's soup."

"It's Andy Warhol."

"Is that my phone?"

"Where's your hat, Dylan?"

"Some of it's good. You go, wow. Like, is that wool? Is that glass?"

"Did you see the Imagine? There's an Imagine up there."

"It's got no I."

"It's like, put the I in Imagine."

"It mean, like, put yourself, your I, in imagine."

"It's interesting, isn't it?"

"Look at this one."

"Don't go down there, Zach."

"Come on. There's a light bulb one I want to see."

"Your bag's ringing."