For a weekend away we went to Crosby Beach to see Another Place. We came on the train and we’d been out for our friend’s leaving do the night before so we were feeling a bit rough.
It was totally worth it to come here though, as I absolutely loved Anthony Gormley’s statues. There are 100 in total and they go almost one km out to sea.
Each of the statues weighs 650 kilos are made from casts of Gormley’s own body. The aim of the piece is to explore man’s relationship with nature.
I think that it does this, especially as nature becomes one with the statues as things start to grow on them and take over. There is also a bleakness to it, one man walking out to sea, to his inevitable fate.
Anthony Gormley also created the ‘Angel of the North’ which can be found in Gateshead and seen from the motorway.
Another Place was erected in Crosby in 2005 as part of a tour and was bound for New York but they became a permanent fixture here.
One of the great things about these metal statues is that they are changed by the elements and constantly evolve, just like human beings themselves.
This process was interfered with in 2017 when an unknown person daubed clothes on nine of the statues depicting bikinis and shorts.
Anthony Gormley was unhappy with his statues being painted and it caused a debate as to whether it was art or vandalism and most people said it was vandalism.
The graffiti seems to have been removed now, but people do dress them up as Santas at Christmastime, although that is, of course, not permanent!
I thought it was a really poetic place. Just be careful of soft sands and mud, some of the statues can only be admired at a distance as they are too far out to sea to be reached.
I love art in industrial places, especially next to the ocean, which is such a dramatic and artistic place anyway. I’m certainly glad the statues ended up staying in Liverpool instead of the USA, I think they look at home here.
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