January 2009

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The shortlist for a giant £2m sculpture landmark in north Kent was revealed yesterday. Designed to do for the Thames Gateway what Antony Gormley’s ‘Angel of the North’ has done for Tyneside, it will stand on a prominent site overlooking the new Eurostar high-speed line at Ebbsfleet. Frenchman Daniel Buren – the only non-English artist on the list – has proposed a five-storey tower of stacked lattice-work cubes, through which a laser-beam will be projected into the sky. Richard Deacon has created the most abstract proposal, a steel skelton of 26 differently shaped polyhedrons. Christopher le Brun evokes memories of the prehistoric and Roman settlement of the area with a vast concrete wing suggesting an angel or bird in front of a disc that has seemingly been levered out of the ground below it, leaving a shallow amphitheatre in the chalk. Mark Wallinger proposes a horse – hyper-realistic in form, but 33 times life size – and Rachel Whiteread one of her signature casts of a house’s interior set on an artificial mound. The proposals will be exhibited for three months from 27 May at the Bluewater Shopping Centre, not far from the site of the eventual sculpture. The winning artists, chosen by a selection board that includes Peter Murray, director of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and Madeleine Bessborough, director of the New Art Centre, will be announced in the autumn. The sculpture will be paid for by three patrons: Eurostar, Land Securities and London & Continental Railways.

Michael Hall comments:

A popular winner was evident minutes after the pack of journalists and cameramen entered the room at Ebbsfleet where the models of the shortlisted sculptures were set out, with four of their artists (Richard Deacon was installing an exhibition in New York). The most eager buzz was around Mark Wallinger’s brilliantly simple concept, a Stubbs-like horse on a giant scale. It has the potential to be a haunting addition to this ancient landscape, overlooking the valley that will soon be the site of a new community of some 10,000 houses. French journalist yawned openly when I asked them about Buren’s proposal – ‘oh, he’s so over-exposed’. His tower of cubes, with a mirrored box at its heart and a laser beam soaring above, looked like a Constructivist monument to the unknown soldier. It left me cold. Richard Deacon’s tangle of lattice work was the biggest disappointment, and even the CGI images on show suggested that it would be overwhelmed by the giant electricity pylons that surround the site. I was surprised by the hostility that Chistopher Le Brun’s proposal prompted in some journalists – ‘quasi-fascist’; ‘like something commissioned by Mussolini’ were two of the kinder comments. It would be my second choice – its powerful forms would look good from all angles, with a touch of poetry created by the movement of the wing’s shadow across the disc, like a vast sundial. Much as I admire Rachel Whiteread, she seems to have found it diffficult to come up with an idea that will work on this huge scale: her proposal’s silhouette – a crucial element of this commission – is clumsy and hard to read. My money’s on Wallinger, a work of great subtlety that could also be a huge popular success. After all, a horse is the symbol of Kent – although he told me, ‘funnily enough I didn’t realise this until after I’d had the idea’.

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