Sculpture winner at home with wild weather

German sculptor Jorg Plickat has won the Sculptures by the Sea prize and pocketed $60,000 for his work Divided Planet, a large steel construction reflecting the world's political and social divisions.

It had been quite a feat to get the enormous steel sculpture from the northern German city of Kiel on the Baltic Sea to Sydney for the popular outdoor art exhibition.

"It was really hard because it was too big for each shipping container, so we had to divide it," Plickat said on Thursday at the exhibition's official opening.

"But even then, we had less than one centimetre room in the container, but we made it."

Plickat said the heavy, rusted steel structure was literally and figuratively a broken planet.

"The shape, you see, it is like a sphere, it is like the planet divided into fragments - political, ethical, economical parts.

"When this millennium started 15 years ago, we all hoped that it would be a better millennium - that people would start to solve the big problems of our planet.

"But now, after 15 years, we see that this planet is more fragmented, more divided in political and ethical blocs than it was before.

"So it is artists' demand to the politicians to give better answers to what our planet needs."

Sculptures by the Sea, in its 19th year, showcases 107 works by Australian and international artists along the coastline between Bondi Beach and Tamarama.

The NSW government has committed $300,000 to the exhibition over the next four years.

Sculptures by the Sea is open to the public until November 8.