Devil of the North
DID anyone else feel jipped at last week's Antiques Roadshow.
It was the one with shed-loads of publicity about the first £1m valuation by the show's experts.
And as the programme was recorded at the Sage Gateshead I tuned in expecting to see all the emotion of a ordinary man or woman who found a genuine antique in their possession.
What I got was....
A replica of the Angel of the North.
Now let me begin by admitting the Angel does nothing for me, never has, never will. It may have usurped the Tyne Bridge as the definitive iconic image of the North East but, to me at least and a sizable minority of the population, it is just a rusty-looking monstrosity which looks more like a German World War I bomber than an angel.
So when this replica turned up at the Antiques Roadshow I was less than impressed.
First it not even a genuine antique, having being made recently, so it really didn't belong in a programme devoted to old and dusty bits and pieces found in the loft. Secondly, it did not even belong to any one individual. It belongs to Gateshead Council. There was no interesting back-story about ancestors, no historical research to be done, no human emotion behind its appearance. Just a bit of civic posturing.
It was just a scaled-down template from Anthony Gormley giving councillors an idea of what the Angel of the North would look like if they were daft enough to commission it. I don't know about you but I have always liked the Antiques Roadshow because ordinary people bring their nick-nacks to see how much they've got. It's not meant for local authoritries to show off their corporate pride.
And as for that £1m valuation. Well, I've always said the arts world is nuttier than a squirrel cutlet. I've also said in my Sunday Sun column that Gormley is a self-obsessed member of the artistic community who has been known, so it is said, to use bodily fluids in his endeavours. His works are often based on his own image.
If anyone is prepared to pay £1m for one of several templates for the Angel of the North that is their business. It is, apparantly, not for sale because it belongs to the people of Gateshead. Brilliant: not only do we have to have the real Angel rubbed in our noses but its annoying little brother as well.
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I suggest you read some background material on the artist and his work and a little bit about why he uses the human body, and his own body in casts and public art.
Much of appreciation of art is about aesthetics, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but getting down to the theory of what Antony Gormley explores in his work is really very interesting.