Five Artists Compete for Ebbsfleet Landmark Sculpture

Five artists—Daniel Buren, Richard Deacon, Christopher Le Brun, Mark Wallinger, and Rachel Whiteread—are competing to create a monumental sculpture for Ebbsfleet Valley, a new town in Kent, southeast of London. The project, driven by the UK government and three private companies, aims to build thousands of homes, offices, and public facilities over 20 years, with the area potentially becoming a major site for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The winning artist will receive £2.6 million (the largest private British commission) to produce a work over 40 meters tall, visible from the valley and comparable to Nelson's Column (45 m) or the Arc de Triomphe (50 m). The proposals vary widely: Buren's geometric stack of five cubes forming a ziggurat-like structure with a laser beam at night; Deacon's assembly of 26 polyhedra in irregular steel; Le Brun's lyrical bird wing on a white disc; Wallinger's provocative 33-times-scale replica of a white thoroughbred horse; and Whiteread's truncated artificial hill surrounded by Victorian houses, topped with one of her concrete houses. The winner will be announced in autumn 2008.