Anthony Gormley’s series of standing figures in the Water of Leith (6 TIMES) have become a cherished feature of the city. Gormley was attracted to the location as ‘what’s brilliant about the Water of Leith is that it’s so hidden. It’s a secret.’

6 TIMES is a quiet and contemplative piece that draws attention to both natural and manmade elements of the Water of Leith. Gormley uses the body as a template to project his creative ideas upon. 6 TIMES encourages us to reflect on how human beings fit into our natural environment, and ‘what will become of us?’.

Swathed in debris

They were installed in 2010 but removed in 2012 due to structural issues. Reinstated in 2019, these life-size cast iron sculptures of the artist’s body have generally elicited admiration but have sometimes caused confusion. During their installation they provoked calls from concerned residents who mistook them for endangered walkers who had fallen into the river.

During storms, Gormley’s figures get swathed in debris. When the surges are particularly strong, a mechanism causes them to tilt and lie below the water level. This leads to some fearing that they’ve been swept away!

Art in the real world

Gormley’s best-known work is the Angel of the North, which towers over Gateshead. His public sculptures are a manifestation of his belief that art should be out in the real world to be engaged with, rather than enclosed in austere galleries. ‘I just want my work to be part of the elemental world.’

The figures in the Water of Leith have received a lot of playful engagement. Some have been decked out in football strips. A more extreme type of interaction occurred in Northern Ireland where his Sculpture for Derry Walls figures were ‘necklaced’, encased in vivid red melted plastic evoking the dreadful punishment meted out in South Africa. Shocking to some, Gormley felt this only added to the pieces. More broadly, his work reflects a belief that the environment we live in constitutes the most pressing issue facing us.

A form of sculpture

In arguing that art and nature are inextricably linked, Gormley echoes one of Scotland’s most prominent cultural figures, Richard Demarco. The connections between art and nature have been a theme of Demarco’s long cultural life, as expressed in collaborations with the likes of Ian Hamilton Finlay and Joseph Beuys. ‘I count the blessings of my long life upon this uniquely beautiful and miraculous planet Earth, now rendered most vulnerable by global warming.’

Demarco has long sought out wild places for inspiration. They are, in his view, more important than galleries and art schools as locations to galvanise artistic endeavour. This was expressed most through his fruitful partnership with Joseph Beuys.

Beuys’ 7000 Eichen (7000 Oak Trees) project was a manifestation of his idea of ‘social sculpture’, of art’s potential to challenge and transform society. The original 1982 project centred on a plan to plant 7000 oaks throughout the city of Kassel, pairing each with a piece of basalt. He chose the oak because of its longevity and because the tree ‘has always been a form of sculpture’. As each tree was planted, the pile of stones diminished. A living, growing object replacing an unchanging ‘crystalline mass’. The project aimed to illustrate the excesses of urbanisation and enhance the living space of Kassel.

The artistic imagination often engages with themes which most have not even identified, let alone explored. Artists as social pioneers, testing the boundaries. Beuys was a spearheading environmentalist and a key figure in the formation of the Green Party of Germany. His political and artistic visions were fused, not compartmentalised. Many of his themes of the 1970s are now thoroughly mainstream.

Healing profound wounds

A central theme of Beuys’ was the ability of art to heal profound wounds. This is the philosophy that Demarco, now 95, preaches with undiminished fervour. It derives from a childhood marked by xenophobic attitudes towards Italian immigrants and the implosion of Europe during his childhood. For Demarco, the way that the Edinburgh Festival of 1947 brought countries back together demonstrated the deep, enduring power of art.

For instance, Demarco’s response to Brexit was not to fire off an angry polemic. Instead, he helped plant a tree. The Brexit Tree project, led by Berlin-based German artist Clemens Wilhelm under the aegis of Deveron Arts, has connections with Beuys’ ‘masterpiece’ 7,000 Eichen. The Brexit Tree in Huntly is a weeping willow, a tree which in many cultures symbolises loss and sorrow, but also healing and rebirth.

Ebb and flow

One of Demarco’s most moving recent speeches was delivered after planting an Oak (in the courtyard of Edinburgh College of Art) in Beuys’s memory, 100 years after his birth. Demarco and Beuys’ view that art should be all around us, engaged with by everyone, is manifested in Gormley’s work in the Water of Leith. In the same way humans do, Gormley’s figures are eroding in different ways due to the elements and environment they are placed in. The ebb and flow of seasons is silently witnessed by them, standing proudly as the chilly water trickles, glides or thunders past. ■

Charlie Ellis