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Riding high: a mock-up of how the huge thoroughbred would look at Ebbsfleet. Thirty three times larger than life, the statue is the idea of Mark Wallinger who won a Turner Prize for filming himself dressed as a bear

Giant horse among runners to be 'Angel of the South'

Nick Curtis, Evening Standard
07.05.08

Wallinger: Why I had to win the Turner

In the North, they got an angel. Down South, we may get a giant horse.

This massive statue of a thoroughbred - 33 times larger than life - is one of five shortlisted proposals for a £2 million statue overlooking the Ebbsfleet Valley in Kent to mark the redevelopment of the area and rival Antony Gormley's Angel Of The North.

The horse is the brainchild of artist Mark Wallinger, who recreated protester Brian Haw's parliamentary peace camp at Tate Britain. He also won last year's Turner Prize for a video of himself dressed as a bear, wandering around an empty art gallery.

Back in 1995, Wallinger bought a race-horse and renamed it A Real Work Of Art, hoping to "exhibit" it at races across the country, although thanks to an injury it only ever ran once. His horse statue would be made of sterner stuff and constructed using boat-building technology. It is inspired by Horsa, the semi-mythical leader of the Anglo-Saxons who landed at Ebbsfleet in the fifth century.

The word "horse" derives from his name and the white horse duly became the county symbol of Kent. The competition to find and fund the Ebbsfleet landmark has been organised by Eurostar, London and Continental Railways and property firm Land Securities, which plans to build a new community including 10,000 homes on the 1,000-acre site.

The £2 million commission will be announced in the autumn. Meanwhile, maquette models of Wallinger's sculpture and those of the four other bidding artists will be on display in a gallery in the Bluewater shopping centre from 27 May.

The proposals include Rachel Whiteread's craggy "recycled mountain" with a life-size cast of the interior of a house on top. She became the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993 with a similar cast of a house in the East End.

Daniel Buren has proposed a "signal" - a tower of stacked cubes with a laser beam passing through them.

Richard Deacon's design is for a "nest" of differently shaped polyhedrons, apparently referring to the archeological richness of the Ebbsfleet area.

Christopher Le Brun proposes a giant wing and a disc, in reference to Mercury, the Roman god of travellers and commerce, cast in concrete in a mould carved from Kentish chalk.

The Bluewater exhibition, curated by Claire Foster of FutureCity, will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with details of the thinking behind the artists' proposed landmarks.

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It's the best out of the bunch. At least it will draw attention to a historical and mythological idea. But I think the cost is a little concerning.

- Catherine, essex, england

Perhaps we could paint Gordon Browns head on the posterior of the horse, that would epitomise how the South feels.

- Euan Dead, Highgate

What do we need this rubbish for?

- Philip, Moscow, Russia