Two of the 100 Antony Gormley sculptures of male figures standing on Crosby beach, Merseyside, are sporting colourful crocheted jumpsuits, courtesy of the New York guerrilla knitwear artist Agata Oleksiak, also known as Olek.
The sculptures, which usually stand stark naked looking at the sea, have been radically transformed by the yarn and needle intervention — going from quietly meditative to borderline psychedelic. One is wearing pink, purple and green, while the other has been granted a slightly more demure colour scheme of white, grey, and black.
The idea, explained Olek, was to "transform old into new." "The pieces have been there for a while and people stop paying attention to them," she told the BBC. "By covering them and giving them a new skin, I made them more alive... besides, it is a public work and needs an interaction with a viewer."
Olek has made a name for herself by giving similar knitting treatments to bicycles, cars, grand pianos, and even to the iconic Wall Street Bull. She had planned to cover more — possibly all — of the Antony Gormley standing sculptures, but ran out of time.
Gormley, for his part, appears to have taken it in good spirits. "I feel that barnacles provide the best cover-up," he told the BBC, "but this is a very impressive substitute!"
Olek is one of the main players in guerrilla knitting, or yarn-bombing — a cosy alternative to graffiti art that has been cropping up across the globe in the last few years.
Last March, a mysterious knitter installed a 50ft-long "yarn-bomb" representing a myriad of Olympic sports on the pier of Saltburn by the Sea. Many more interventions of this kind are to be expected in the coming weeks, as June 9 is International Yarn Bombing Day. Their slogan: "Join us in World Yarn Domination. Knit or Be Knitted." You've been warned.
This article appears on ARTINFO UK.