Arts Review

Anthony Gormley in Edinburgh yesterday

6 times

Hugh Kerr

Yesterday I attended the launch of an imaginative collection called '6 Times' by Anthony Gormley, the British sculptor famous for the Angel of the North. Gormley has created six life-size figures which are located first in the Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh and then placed at strategic points in the Water of Leith, the final one in Leith harbour looking out to sea.
     The works were commissioned by the National Galleries of Scotland and cost £400,000, paid for by grants from the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Henry Moore Foundation among others. This seems a big sum but they are big works, made in iron and weighing three tonnes each, and are a fraction of the cost of the recently saved Titian paintings. They are also likely to be seen by many more people.
     Indeed Gormley, who, unusually for a visual artist, is verbally articulate, said he hopes the works will make the Water of Leith much better known to the people of Edinburgh and will become part of a Gormley sculpture trail starting at the Angel of the North.
     The location of the figures is sensational. The first is submerged up to its waist in tarmac at the entrance to the gallery as if it is struggling to escape to the freedom of the river and the sea. The others are beautifully placed all down the river. Each is based on Gormley himself – he wraps himself in clingfilm, covers himself in plaster for a cast, and then casts it in iron. He has already used this technique in London, Formby and New York where his figures have evoked enormous interest and not a little concern. Police in London and New York were called by many people worried about these men about to jump off buildings and already in Edinburgh there have been worried calls about nude men in the river.
     Public art has a long history in Britain from the Roman period to the great Victorian statues of the 19th century. More recently sculpture has been deliberately used by public bodies to help in regeneration. Indeed one of the few redeeming features of Kilmarnock town centre (home of SR) is the collection of amusing sculptures of characters and dogs.
     In a past life I was a member of Harlow Arts Trust which over 50 years commissioned, purchased and installed more than 150 works of sculpture, including works by great British sculptors including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Elizabeth Frink. So it was with some authority that I asked Anthony Gormley a key question: will his sculptures survive the ravages of vandals, perhaps fuelled by drink on a Saturday night?
     Gormley was relaxed about it: 'The sculptures are very tough and will take a lot of damage'. I told him the story of the Henry Moore family group in Harlow – a sculpture worth around £5million which looked splendid set in a green field but which had to be brought into the town centre to protect it. Gormley's '6 Times' are terrific installations. Go and see them before they suffer.

Hugh Kerr was in charge of visual arts policy in the European Parliament and is now a journalist based in Edinburgh