A work my Sir Antony Gormley has fallen victim to mother nature. The life-sized cast iron sculpture by Gormley that stood on rocks at a Dorset beauty spot has fallen into the sea following a storm. The artist was commissioned to create the sculpture by the British conservation charity Landmark Trust to mark the organisation’s 50th anniversary. At its unveiling in May 2015, Gormley described the artwork as a “catalyst for reflection.”
The sculpture at Clavell Tower, Kimmeridge Bay, was supposed to remain in place until May 2016. Howard J Curtis, who spotted the statue lying in the bay, told the BBC: “I know it wasn’t popular with everyone.” The Landmark Trust told the Bournemouth Echo: “We are aware that the “Land” sculpture has come down in the storm at Kimmeridge Bay and we are taking steps to deal with it asap.”
The installation, which is part of a series called Land, includes four other statues dispersed around the UK. Similar artworks stand at Lenghtsman’s Cottage, Lowsonford, in Warwickshire; Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel; Martello Tower, Aldeburgh, in Suffolk; and Saddell Bay, Mull of Kintyre, Scotland.
Sir Antony Mark David Gormley, OBE (born 30 August 1950) is a British sculptor best known for his public works including the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in Gateshead in the North of England, commissioned in 1994 and erected in February 1998, Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, and Event Horizon, a multi-part site-specific installation which premiered in London in 2007, around Madison Square in New York City, in 2010 and in São Paulo, in 2012.
Photo: HOWARD J CURTIS