The iron men cometh as Gormley unveils first public art installation for Scotland

Published on Wednesday 11 March 2009 20:50

ANTONY Gormley, the artist behind the iconic Angel of the North sculpture, has unveiled details of his first public installation in Scotland.

The piece, entitled Six Times, will see a series of 6ft tall figures placed along the Water of Leith in Edinburgh, from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to Leith Quayside.

The work will be reminiscent of one his most famous pieces, Another Place, in which 100 life-size naked figures stand on a 1.8 mile stretch of Crosby Beach on Merseyside. The cast-iron sculptures attracted more than 700,000 visitors in just two years, proving so popular they have become a permanent fixture.

Gormley's Six Times figures will be partly funded by the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS). The figures are currently being cast – based on moulds of the artist's body – and planning permission is being sought for their installation.

The Gallery of Modern Art has described the piece as "a spectacular work that will see the art moving out of the galleries and working across the city". Speaking about the project, Gormley said: "The work is being made and we have the money. The body forms will punctuate the flow of the river: the idea is to connect different pieces of Edinburgh with these iron figures."

One sculpture will be situated at the gallery itself, buried up to its neck, one will be in a pond near the gallery and another near the bridge in Stockbridge.

The fourth will be in the Powderhall area, another in a derelict industrial site and the final figure will be put on the end of the pier near where the Royal yacht Britannia is berthed.

Each of the figures will be progressively looking further up to the sky.

The completed work is expected to cost about 250,000, with NGS using part of the 100,000 it won in the UK's biggest arts contest for Landform – a huge outdoor landscape sculpture created by the artist Charles Jencks at the Gallery of Modern Art – to pay for it.

Gormley won the Turner Prize in 1994 and was awarded the OBE in 1998 for services to sculpture.

Richard Demarco, the veteran arts impresario and head of the Demarco European Art Foundation, described the Six Times project as "very exciting". "I'm absolutely delighted to hear about this," he said.

"I think it's very much needed to give people a reason to come from the centre of the city to the coastline.

"It's a step in the right direction that a world-renowned artist is putting his work on the riverside.

"I have committed myself to extending the range of the Edinburgh Festival out towards Leith and so this gives me hope for the development of the cultural life of Edinburgh's coastline."

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