Text 4. Angel of the North

From computer animation to the visual arts, the outstanding quality of British

art and design is acknowledged around the world.

Take the amazing Angel of the North, which soars above the A1 road at Gateshead in the north-east England – the largest public sculpture ever erected in the UK. Its 54m wingspan is nearly as large as a jumbo jet’s. At 20m high and weighing 200 tones, it contains enough steel to make 16 double-decker buses. Each wing alone weighs 50 tones. Every day some 90.000 vehicles drive by this incredible sight.

The sculpture is the creation of Anthony Gormley (1950- ), one of the UK’s most innovative artists. He has exhibited work all around the world and his major public works can be seen in Japan and Australia, Norway and the USA. Anthony Gormley is perhaps best known for having pioneered the technique of using his own body as a ‘living mould’ for life-sized figures in bronze and other metals.

The Angel of the North was constructed on land where the bath houses of a former coal mine once stood. It dominates the countryside for kilometers around. While coal production in the UK is not the industry it was, coal still plays a part in the meeting the country’s energy needs. But it is to energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies that the UK now looks.