Big in Britain

The Independent’s Arifa Akbar gives voice to the growing complaints that public sculpture in the UK has a case of gigantism. From Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North to Anish Kapoor’s forthcoming mirrored works to be installed in Kensington Gardens:

“Artists are more like architects, leading a team of people. They are the ones who will build these large sculptures. These sculptures, once they get to a certain scale, can’t be made by your own hand.”

Hunter believes that the trend towards large sculptures is a product of Tony Blair’s Britain, and that we might now see a reversal of the trend, given these recessionary times. “Maybe it’s got something to do with the culture of the Blair years, they spent a lot of money on… things that were not all that relevant. Having just come back from the Architecture Biennale in Venice, there was an art flash architecture group that had researched [this area] and at the end of 12 months, they found that people wanted pedestrian crossings and cleaner streets, not big sculptures,” he says.

Why Size is Everything in Public Art (Independent)