Sculpture by Sir Antony Gormley stands proud over the Dewsbury skyline

A cast iron sculpture made by Angel of the North creator Sir Antony Gormley has been craned onto the roof of the new Kirklees College building in Dewsbury.
The Antony Gormley sculpture in situ at the Pioneer Higher Skills Centre at Kirklees CollegeThe Antony Gormley sculpture in situ at the Pioneer Higher Skills Centre at Kirklees College
The Antony Gormley sculpture in situ at the Pioneer Higher Skills Centre at Kirklees College

A huge crane lifted the sculpture – entitled WORK – onto the top of the Pioneer Higher Skills Centre in Northgate where it will stand overlooking the town.

Sir Antony, who was born in Dewsbury agreed to loan the sculpture as a symbol to mark the completion of painstaking restoration work on the grade II-listed Victorian former Co-operative building.

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The installation was carried out to the artist’s exact instructions with the minimum of publicity.

In a brief statement Sir Antony said: “I am delighted to mount WORK on the roof of the Pioneer Higher Skills Centre as a celebration of our hands-on making culture.”

The creation is an early example of Sir Antony’s Beamer series which investigates the space of a human body by using the structures of the body that normally contain it.

The sculpture is made up of a network of interlocking beams, suggesting that the body is as much a register of space as it is a displacer of it.

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It is constructed from blocks and beams set to x/y/z coordinates, containing voids that allow space to penetrate the body. It looks outwards to the horizon.

The sculpture marks the launch of the Dewsbury public art plan, Creative Town. It will be just one of the new developments in Dewsbury town centre under the multi-million pound Blueprint regeneration project.

Sir Antony said previously of WORK: “I hope that it also expresses something of the character of the place: rugged and determined but open to light, space and the future.”

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