[Gateshead, public art]
Antony Gormley
Angel of the North, 1998
metro to Gateshead, then bus 725, 726 to Birtley 0191-232-5325 (bus info)
Located 3 mi south of downtown Gateshead alongside the A167 highway near its intersection with A1 at the Birtley rotary.

Fact-ridden documentation reveals that Angel of the North was designed by Antony Gormley (Turner Prize winner, 1994); engineered with the help of modern digital technology and time-honored industrial and shipbuilding techniques; fabricated by regional steelworkers and craftspeople; and transported to the site, assembled and installed by skilled crews operating monstrous pieces of equipment. The official statistics also relate that the figure weighs 100 tons and is 65 ft (20 m) tall with a wingspan of 175 ft (54 m). Its size is thus approximately the same as a jumbo jet. Beneath the ground, the concrete-pile foundation on which the sculpture rests is 65 ft (20 m) deep and reinforced by 52 bolts each 10 ft (3 m) long. Without question, the Angel is a colossal, mind-boggling work of art.

The sculpture serves as a kind of signpost at the southern entry into the Tyneside region. Strategically placed, high atop a grassy hilltop in an open stretch of barren landscape, it is prominently visible to people in cars heading north on the main A1 highway. (90,000 vehicles presumably pass by every day.) You can even see it as a passenger traveling on the London-Edinburgh train. In addition to being a landmark, the sculpture was envisioned as an promotional icon bolding asserting a new identity for the area. (Auspiciously, it stands on land previously used as a coal mine.) As might be expected, local residents were initially skeptical, if not sharply critical, of such an enormous and costly art project. Many, however, now view the Angel with pride as a symbol of the Gateshead-Newcastle regeneration. Undeniably, the city, region and nation recognized the sculpture's potential value as an international tourist attraction and extraordinary public monument. At one fell swoop it put Gateshead on the map.

All that said, nothing really prepares you for the experience of seeing the androgynous, humanoid, faceless, rib-structured, utterly symmetrical, poised, stock-still Angel. Looming large over people, who only come up to its ankles, and standing upright in full command of the landscape like a majestic presence, it's a very impressive sight. Actually, the figure is more provocative than overwhelming. It's called an angel, and yet its rusted-steel, welded form, heavy materiality and straight-line, firmly grounded body hardly seem angelic at least not according to conventional visions of weightless, fluttery blond cherubs in diaphanous white robes! True, the cruciform posture adds a spiritual aura, but more than this Gormley's sculpture conveys an enigmatic, mystical sense of time and place. Somewhat like the menhirs at Stonehenge or the abstract paintings of Mark Rothko, the Angel of the North eludes definition even as it sustains wonderment.