The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Antony Gormley · a monumental sculpture in weathering steel: one standing figure about 20 metres high, two straight, flat wings held out to either side and spanning about 54 metres, body and wings crossed by horizontal ribs · commissioned by Gateshead Council, engineered by Ove Arup and Partners, fabricated in sections by Hartlepool Steel Fabrications, erected in February 1998 · on a hilltop at Low Fell, at the southern approach to Gateshead and Newcastle, beside the A1 and the A167 and in view of the East Coast Main Line · the unit scored is the sculpture as it stands on its site: the original object, in place and unaltered, with no part known to be replaced; the hill, the roads and the railway are the conditions of its seeing, not parts of the work
Mode
Monumental public sculpture set beside a road; a figure cast from the body and enlarged, made of the structure that holds it up
Mythos
The angel as messenger and as guardian at a threshold, placed at the entrance to a region; the cruciform body with its span held out; flight rebuilt as an aircraft’s wing
Phase
Commissioned by Gateshead Council, opposed by many locally before it was built, erected in February 1998; scored as it stands, twenty-eight years on and unaltered
Presentation
Weathering steel of the Cor-Ten type, left to oxidise to a stable rust surface; body and wings ribbed horizontally; fabricated in sections and assembled on site, on concrete piles about 20 metres deep
Register
A calm, outward embrace, grand and open; seen from far and at speed, against weather
Scale
About 20 metres high, about 54 metres across the wings, about 200 tonnes; one figure, one gesture, one place
Governing Proposition
On a hill at the southern approach to Gateshead, above the A1, a standing figure about twenty metres high holds out two straight, flat wings that span about fifty-four metres, more than two and a half times its height. The body was cast from the artist’s own and enlarged; it has no face, and its hands and feet are not rendered in detail. Body and wings are built of weathering steel, crossed by the horizontal ribs that stiffen them, and left to rust. The wager of the work is that a region whose labour was heavy industry can be given a guardian made in that industry’s own material, at the time the industry ended, and that one figure seen at speed from road and rail can carry it.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
Angel of the North was commissioned by Gateshead Council and erected in February 1998 on a hilltop at Low Fell, at the southern approach to Gateshead and Newcastle. The A1 and the A167 pass below it, and the East Coast Main Line runs in view of it. The figure is about twenty metres high, and its wings span about fifty-four metres, wider than the figure is tall by more than two and a half times. It weighs about two hundred tonnes. It cost about one million pounds, the greater part of it from National Lottery arts funding.
Most of those who see it see it in motion. From the south the figure rises over the brow of the hill, the span wider than the body is tall, against whatever weather there is; from the railway it stands against the sky across the valley. A figure seen at speed must be read whole at a distance, and the scale is compelled by that: it is the wingspan that carries the figure across the valley. In fog, at dusk, under snow, or with a low light along the ribs, it rises again each time, and many of the tens of thousands who pass it every day keep its effect.
Its parts are few: a body, two wings, the ribs, the rust and the hill. Take away the wings and it is a giant standing man; take away the body and it is an aircraft fin or a road sign. The hill could hold another figure of the same kind with little loss, and the necessity is of the type more than of this particular body. The roads, the railway and the hill are not parts of the work. They are the conditions of its seeing, and the work is judged as it stands among them.
Movement II
The body was derived from a cast of Antony Gormley’s own body, enlarged. It has no face, and its hands and feet are not rendered in detail: it is the silhouette of one man, smoothed. The method descends from the artist’s earlier figures cast from his body, made at human size for the gallery, inward and solitary. Here the same method is carried to twenty metres and set outdoors beside a road, and the inward figure becomes a public one.
The wings are straight, flat and aerofoil-like, not feathered: an aircraft’s wings, not a bird’s. The angel is among the oldest figures Western art has, the messenger, the guardian at a threshold, the being between earth and sky, and here it is placed literally at a threshold, at the entrance to a region. The span held out gives the cruciform figure, the body offered. The wings make the angel a made machine as well, the archetype of flight rebuilt in industrial terms.
The particular survives: it is one man’s body, cast from life, in one place. But the archetype is invoked more as name and silhouette than worked through the form. The figure has no gesture beyond its stance, and much of the myth is carried by the title and the site. Its height is of one register, a calm outward embrace, without terror and without inwardness. Close to, it is a large and well-made steel structure, and the grandeur of the distant view gives way to engineering. Its elevation is that of landscape and landmark more than of form discovered in looking.
Movement III
The figure is built of weathering steel, of the Cor-Ten type, left to oxidise to a stable rust surface. Body and wings are crossed by horizontal ribs, the stiffening of the structure made visible on its surface. The ribs carry the most: they are the structure, and they read at once as the hull of a ship, the ribs of a body and the strata of the hill. Without them the figure would be a smooth casting, and the made, industrial character that ties it to shipyard and pit would be gone; without the rust it would be an emblem for a company. The weathering is part of the form. The figure changes colour with rain and season, and is meant to.
The engineering was by Ove Arup and Partners and the fabrication by Hartlepool Steel Fabrications. The figure was made in sections, carried by road and assembled on site, the seams joined so that they read as part of the rib structure. Its foundations are concrete piles sunk about twenty metres into the hill to hold the overturning force of the wings, and it was designed to withstand winds above a hundred miles an hour. It holds a span of fifty-four metres on an exposed hill without visible bracing. The enlargement of a cast body to this scale, and its translation into steel plate, is carried through without the body going slack or the joints showing.
Body and wings, the two most distant elements, obey one law: the same steel, the same ribbed sections, the same skin of rust, so that flesh and machine are one material and one method, and the body becomes a made thing in the region’s own trade. Nothing in the work contradicts anything else. But the law governs a small territory, a single standing figure with few distant elements to reconcile, and the shaping of the body is enlargement more than modelling: the command lies in the cast, the choice of material and the system of ribs. It is fine engineering serving a few decisive choices.
Movement IV
Before it was built, the commission was opposed by many locally, contested as a waste of public money and as an eyesore, and the engineering for wind on an exposed hill was not routine. The work risked becoming a ridiculed folly. Its inheritance is the colossal monument, from statues at harbour mouths to civic war memorials, and the angel in public sculpture. Its departure: a colossus that commemorates no person and no event, set beside a road rather than in a square, built not in bronze or stone but in welded steel with its structure on the surface, and given wings that are flat engineered planes. It was erected in February 1998, and the public that had been against it adopted it.
What the figure brings into the open can be put in a sentence. A region whose labour was heavy industry, the pit and the shipyard, much of it underground and out of sight, is given a body that stands in the open air, made of heavy steel, the region’s own trade, at the time that labour ended. The miners and the shipbuilders are not shown; the means of their work is the figure’s flesh. The ground beneath the figure is reported to be that of a former colliery, over old workings; that is not settled, and nothing here rests on it.
The meaning is carried mainly by the site and by what is known of the region, not uncovered by the object. A visitor who did not know the region’s history would read a guardian, a welcome, a mood of protection. A mood ranks below a meaning, and the figure stands between them: it marks a condition already known more than it reveals one. The turn it made is likewise in setting and fabrication more than in what a sculpture can be. The figurative colossus stands, and the body cast was already the artist’s established practice.
Movement V
Twenty-eight years on, the figure stands as it was made, in place and unaltered, with no part known to have been replaced. It needs no museum and no ticket; it is seen by tens of thousands of people every day, and it has become a landmark on maps and signs and in the region’s picture of itself. Fame is presence, not proof of permanence. Its fabric is steel made to weather, piled deep into the hill, and nothing is charged against it; only the shortness of the span holds its survival where it stands.
It became the reference point for landmark public art in Britain. Commissions across the regions after 1998 were argued for and against in its name, and it is commonly credited with the confidence behind Gateshead’s riverside cultural projects. Many later colossi followed its path, few of them well. It changed how a country commissions public art more than what sculpture is. The return it draws is real: is it a memorial or a brand, does a region after industry honour its labour or decorate its loss, what does it mean that the body is the artist’s own? But the return goes mostly to the landmark and the event, and the object yields the same image on each visit.
On the visual art desk the nearest posted work is Louise Bourgeois’s Maman, at 8.3, a monumental steel figure of the same years standing in public, whose care and menace are in the object where the Angel’s meaning leans on its site; the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the winged figure of the canon, also stands at 8.3, and Damien Hirst’s For the Love of God at 7.5. From the architecture desk, the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Burj Khalifa, engineered emblems seen from far, stand level with it at 7.8. The figure holds labour, history, the body, the sacred, the hill and the weather, and a polity that opposed it and then adopted it; the family and the inward life are absent. It stands on its hill above the roads, its span wider than its height, the light running along its ribs.
Act III · The Twelve
The subtractive test finds very little to remove. The parts are a body, two wings, the ribs, the rust and the hill. Take away the wings and it is a giant standing man, one of the many enlarged figures of its decade; take away the body and it is an aircraft fin or a road sign. Take away the ribs and the steel stands as a smooth casting, and the made, industrial character that ties it to shipyard and pit is gone. Take away the rust and it is a corporate emblem. The scale is compelled: a figure seen at speed from road and rail must be read whole at a distance. What gives: the hill could hold another figure of the same kind with little loss. The necessity is of the type more than of this body.
Score: 7.9 / 10
Image is credited as fully as words. What the figure brings into the open can be stated: a region whose labour was heavy industry, much of it underground and out of sight, is given a body that stands in the open air, made in the region’s own trade in heavy steel, at the time that labour ended. That holds. The men who dug coal and built ships are not shown, but the means of their work is the figure’s flesh. The limit is where the meaning lives: mainly in the site and in what is known of the region, not uncovered by the object. A visitor who knew nothing of the place would read a guardian, a welcome, a mood of protection. It marks a condition already known more than it reveals one.
Score: 7.4 / 10
The elevation is real, of the grand and open kind: a figure twenty metres high with a span of fifty-four, seen from below against weather, or rising over the brow of the hill to a driver going north. It comes again and again, in fog, at dusk, under snow, with the light along the ribs, and frequency counts: it is seen daily by tens of thousands and keeps its effect for many of them. What holds it below 8 is range. The register is single, a calm outward embrace, without terror and without inwardness, and close looking does not add the shifts of scale a great sculpture gives. Near to, it is a large, well-made steel structure, and the sublime of the distant view gives way to engineering.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The angel is among the oldest figures Western art has: the messenger, the guardian at a threshold, the being between earth and sky. Here it is partly built into the object. The guardian at the gate stands literally at the entrance to a region. The span held out gives the cruciform figure, the body offered. The wings are an aircraft’s, not a bird’s, so that the angel is also a made machine, the archetype of flight rebuilt in industrial terms. The particular survives: one man’s body, cast from life, in one place. What holds it below the gate: the archetype is invoked more as name and silhouette than worked through the form. The figure has no gesture beyond its stance, and much of the myth lies in the title and the site.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The inheritance: the colossal monument, from statues at harbour mouths to civic war memorials; the angel in public sculpture; and, in the artist’s own practice, the figure cast from his body. The departure: a colossus that commemorates no person or event, set by a road rather than in a square, built not in bronze or stone but in welded steel with its structure on the surface, and given wings that are flat engineered planes. The stake was real. Many locally opposed the commission before it was built, as a waste of public money and as an eyesore, and engineering for wind on an exposed hill was not routine. It risked becoming a ridiculed folly, and it won. Held below 8: the turn is in setting and fabrication more than in what a sculpture can be.
Score: 7.6 / 10
Change the form and the work knows something else. In bronze it is a war memorial; in polished stainless steel, a corporate logo; at human size, one of the artist’s gallery figures, inward and solitary. At twenty metres, in rusted, rib-built steel, it knows that the body of the place is industrial labour, and that a body can be a landscape. The ribs carry the knowledge most: they are the structure, and they read at once as the hull of a ship, the ribs of a body and the strata of the hill. The weathering is part of the form; the figure changes colour with rain and season, and is meant to. Held at 8.1 because the body, enlarged from a cast and smoothed of features, is the least worked part of the form.
Score: 8.1 / 10
Evidence over promise, with twenty-eight years in hand. The return is sustained in public life: the work is revisited as the symbol of the North East, as an emblem of regeneration, as a case in arguments over public art, lottery money and civic identity. The questions it carries are real. Is it a memorial or a brand? Does a region after industry honour its labour or decorate its loss? What does it mean that the body is the artist’s own? But the return goes mostly to its meaning as a landmark and an event in the region’s history, not to the object, which yields the same image on each visit; and the deeper return on the artist’s practice of the body runs through his other works.
Score: 7.2 / 10
The field is British public sculpture of the 1990s and after. The intrinsic force is moderate. The work does not reorganise what a sculpture can be; it carries a gallery artist’s practice of the body to monumental public scale, and shows that a large, abstracted figurative work can be loved by a public that was against it. It is a model more than a turning point: many later colossi followed its path, few of them well. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: it became the reference point for landmark public art in Britain, commissions across the regions after 1998 were argued for and against in its name, and it is commonly credited with the confidence behind Gateshead’s riverside cultural projects. Beyond Britain its reach is narrower.
Score: 7.8 / 10
Weighed on form, then presence, then fabric. Form: whole as made, in place on its original site, nothing lost or replaced, and needing no maintenance to remain legible. Presence: continuous, and of the widest kind for its age: an outdoor work seen by tens of thousands of people daily for twenty-eight years, free of charge and without a museum, a landmark on maps and signs and in the region’s picture of itself, which has passed through the opposition that met it and out the other side. Fame is presence, not proof of permanence, and is given little weight. Fabric: weathering steel, ribbed, and piled about twenty metres into the hill. Nothing is charged. The span is short, and the figure stands where twenty-eight years can place it.
Score: 8.6 / 10
Judged to the same anchors as every medium, the making by Ove Arup and Partners and Hartlepool Steel Fabrications credited to the work. The command is high and load-bearing: a figure fifty-four metres wide on an exposed hill, designed to hold in winds above a hundred miles an hour without visible bracing; its stiffening ribs made the surface of the work; the sections fabricated off site and joined so that the seams read as part of the rib structure; the foundations sunk to hold the overturning force of the wings. The enlargement of a cast body to this scale, and its translation into steel plate, is carried through without the body going slack. Held at 8.2 because the figure is enlarged more than modelled: fine engineering serving a few decisive choices.
Score: 8.2 / 10
Take the two most distant elements: the human body, cast from one living man, and the wings, flat engineered planes like an aircraft’s. They obey one law. Everything is rendered in the same steel, built in the same ribbed sections and weathered to the same skin, so that flesh and machine are one material and one method, and the body becomes a made thing in the region’s own trade. No element of the work contradicts another; the rust that might seem a defect is part of the plan. Held at 8.0 because narrowness is not coherence: the law, once grasped, governs a small territory, and a single standing figure has few distant elements to reconcile. Coherent, and narrow.
Score: 8.0 / 10
The orders held are more than a single figure usually carries, because the setting brings them in. Labour, in the steel of the figure and the industry of the region. History: the end of heavy industry in the North East, at the time of its building. The body: one man’s, cast from life. The sacred: the angel, and the cruciform stretch of the span. The natural order: the hill, the weather and the sky it is seen against. The polity and the community: a council’s commission, and a public that opposed it and then adopted it. These are held, not listed, but carried by the setting as much as by the object. What holds it lowest: the family, the inward life and the social life of people are absent. The mark describes the form.
Score: 7.0 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
7.8 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier III · Major
Strongest Dimensions
The Imperishable at 8.6, then The Made at 8.2 and The Living Form at 8.1. A form whole on its own site after twenty-eight years, unaltered and in continuous public view, at the widest presence for its age; a making in which the stiffening ribs, the sectional fabrication and the foundations that hold a fifty-four-metre span on an exposed hill are the visible substance of the work; and a form whose scale, material and ribs know what bronze, polished steel or human size would not, that the body of a place is its industrial labour.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 7.0: labour, history, the body, the sacred, the natural order and a polity are held, but carried by the setting as much as by the object, and the family and the inward life are absent. Below the rest, The Bottomless Well at 7.2 and The Unconcealment at 7.4: a return that goes mostly to the landmark and the event, the object yielding the same image on each visit; and a disclosure that leans on the site and on what is known of the region more than it is uncovered by the figure. Next above them, The Swerve at 7.6: a turn in setting and fabrication more than in what a sculpture can be. They are one fact, and it is what holds the work below Tier IV: a landmark whose meaning is lent by its place, made with high command and few decisions.
The Necessity Cap clears at 7.9 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears: The Living Form at 8.1, The Made at 8.2, The Inner Law at 8.0, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet: The Imperishable at 8.6 clears the bar of 8.5, but The Archetypal Deep at 7.9, Pressure on Tradition at 7.8, The Swerve at 7.6 and The Unconcealment at 7.4 fall short of it. The Universal Minimum is unmet at The Bottomless Well, 7.2, and The Unconcealment, 7.4, both below 7.5; The Encompassed, which it exempts, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 7.0. Three of the five summit conditions are met, the Necessity Cap, the Coherence Floor and the Megethos Floor. The twelve sum to 93.6, an average of 7.8. The work stands where its aggregate places it: 7.8, in the band of Tier III, short of the 8.0 at which Tier IV begins and of the 9.0 that the summit requires.
Basis · a reading from knowledge of the object as a public landmark and of its well-documented commissioning; the specialist criticism of it is known more thinly, and where a judgment turns on critical return it is held more loosely. The work scored is the sculpture at Gateshead as it stands on its site: one standing figure in weathering steel on a hilltop at Low Fell, erected in February 1998, the original object, in place and unaltered, with no part known to be replaced. The hill, the roads and the railway below it are the conditions of its seeing, not parts of the work. The maquettes and working models, the artist’s earlier figures cast from his body, and the later public works in the region are context and are not scored. No words are quoted but the title. Facts that could not be verified are not given or are stated as open, among them the forward angle of the wings, the history of the ground beneath the figure (reported as a former colliery over old workings, and not taken as settled), the count of traffic passing it, episodes of its public life after its building, the artist’s stated purposes for it, the number and whereabouts of the models, and its designed lifespan.