Section:GDN 1N PaGe:3 Edition Date:190801 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 31/7/2019 20:44 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
3Thursday 1 August 2019 The Guardian •
News
060802040100mArc Majeur, a 250-tonne steel arc by French artist Bernar Venet
will stand over the busy E411 in south-east Belgium30m
Christ the
Redeemer
Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil60m
Arc Majeur
Lavaux-
Sainte-Anne,
Belgium46m
Statue of
Liberty
New York,
US110m
Sanctuary of
Christ the King
Almada,
Portugal20m
Angel of
the North
Gateshead,
EnglandDaniel Boff ey
Brussels
A Belgian motorway has been con-
fi rmed as the site of what is being
billed as one of the world’s tallest pub-
lic artworks, which at 60 metres will be
twice as high as the statue of Christ the
Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro and taller
than the Statue of Liberty.
Arc Majeur, an imposing 250-tonne
steel structure, will stand over the
busy E411 between the city of Namur
and Luxembourg, a spot chosen partly
on the basis that a driver’s view will be
un obstructed by any lampposts.
The sculpture is not expected to be
offi cially inaugurated until October
but the installation of its main sections
will take place from 10 August , it has
been announced.
The French artist, Bernar Venet,
who designed the arc claimed that
while there were taller monuments
to historical fi gures, that as a purely
artistic sculpture the Arc Majeur would
be the tallest of its type on the face of
the globe.
“There is nothing like this anywhere
in the world,” Venet said. “You will be
able to see it 3km away.”
The €2.5m (£2.3m) arc has had a
troubled history, including two failed
attempts to install it in France.
It was initially due to be erected in
1984 near the city of Auxerre along the
A6 leading to Paris, only to fall foul
of a campaign from the local mayor,
despite the backing of the then French
culture minister, Jack Lang. “It was for
personal reasons,” Venet said of the
mayor’s successful veto.
Subsequent plans for the artwork to
hover over a road in Burgundy came to
nothing after Venet rejected a proposal
from offi cials from the president of
French highway department to paint
the Corten steel red.
“I told him, ‘No way’, you can make
your own,” Venet said.
It was only after collaborating with
the Belgian mechanical engineering
company CMI and its charitable foun-
dation that the idea was given fresh
impetus.
Venet said he had scoured the roads
of Belgium for the right spot before
alighting on a stretch near the village ofLavaux-Sainte-Anne on the outskirts
of the city of Rochefort.
“There are lampposts everywhere
in Belgium,” Venet said. “But here for
15 to 20 kilometres there are no poles.
The driver will have plenty of time to
discover it. What’s interesting aboutthe sculpture is that people will not
stop and look at it. It will be seen when
people are in movement – and they will
go through it and away.”
The sculpture will be formed of
two arcs, of 28 metres and 60 metres
in height, emerging from the earth on
either side of the highway. About 1,
tonnes of concrete will keep it in place.
“It had to be pure nature inserted
with culture,” Venet added. The artist
said that in time there might be two
areas beside the motorway to allow
people to view the structure.
Among Britain’s tallest freestanding
artworks are the ArcelorMittal Orbit
(114.5m) in Queen Elizabeth Olympic
Park, London; the Aspire tower (60m)
at the University of Nottingham’s Jubi-
lee campus; and Antony Gormley’s
Angel of the North (20m) in Gateshead.
The construction of the arc is largely
being funded by the John Cockerill
Foundation, a philanthropic arm of
CMI based in Seraing, Belgium.
Venet has been described by Forbes
magazine as one of France’s greatest
living artists. “I had the idea in 1979 of
two arcs on a road,” he said. “I thought
it would be wonderful to do that. This
is a dream for me.”
The artistic vision may be lost on
some motorists this summer, however.
Until mid-October, only one lane will
be open for those coming to Belgium
from Luxembourg and the road is to
be completely closed to traffi c on the
evening of the sculpture’s installation.
Arc Majeur will also be dwarfed in
Europe by the Motherland statue at
the top of the Museum of the Great
Patriotic War in Ukraine, at 102 metres
high, and the Sanctuary of Christ the
King in Almada, Portugal, which is 110
metres tall.
The tallest monument in the world,
at 182 metres, is believed to be a statue
of India’s fi rst deputy prime minister,
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat.Giant motorway arc billed
as tallest public artwork
▼ Work is carried out on a section of
Arc Majeur, made of Corten steel. It
will be inaugurated in October
PHOTOGRAPH: CHARLES PAULICEVICHAlexa tempt s
radio listeners
to leave BBC for
commercial
alternatives
Jim Waterson
Media editorBritish listeners increasingly prefer
commercial radio stations to the BBC,
according to the latest fi gures which
reveal how services such as Amazon’s
Alexa are changing listening habits.
The long-term trend towards com-
mercial radio has been exacerbated
by the popularity of smart speakers in
British homes, which are prompting
people who were previously loyal to a
single station to try new niche digital-
only outlets for the fi rst time.
While traditionally people would
tune a radio to their favourite station
and leave it there, listening to via a
smart speaker service such as Alexa
involves verbally asking for a channel
every time – giving new entrants more
opportunity to persuade people to try
something diff erent.
“These speakers are now in over
26% of all homes and are good news
for the radio sector, with most people
using them to listen to live radio,” said
Ford Ennals , chief executive of Digital
Radio UK. “Smart speakers also make it
easy for people to listen to the increas-
ing range of digital stations and have
helped propel the growth of new inno-
vative digital stations .”
Figures released today by audience
measurement organisation Rajar show
the BBC’s combined share of UK radio
listening has now fallen below 50% in
the three months between April and
June, breaking a symbolic barrier.
The corporation’s radio stations had
already been overtaken by the com-
mercial sector in terms of the overall
number of people who listen over a
given week.
The BBC has said it no longer chas ed
traditional radio listening fi gures and
was instead prioritising investment
in podcasts via its BBC Sounds app
in an attempt to appeal to younger
listeners. Last summer the corpora-
tion’s director of radio, James Purnell,
warned that both the BBC and com-
mercial sector needed to look beyond
headline listening fi gures and focus
on new audio formats, or “one of us
could win the share battle while we
all lost the war”.
The fi gures do not include catch-
up listening and podcast downloads.
Purnell said: “ People are enjoying lis-
tening to us in diff erent ways, with a
record 75 m downloads of Radio 4 pro-
grammes and podcasts this quarter.”
One success for the BBC has been
the rejuvenated Radio 1 breakfast
show hosted by Greg James, which has
attracted record fi gures by producing
a format that appeals to both younger
listeners and their parents.
Rupert Murdoch’s News UK has con-
tinued to invest in its signing of Chris
Evans on the relaunched Virgin Radio,
increasing his audience to 1.1 million
listeners. His old BBC Radio 2 break-
fast show slot, now hosted by Zoe Ball,
fell by 700,000 listeners to 8.3 million.▲ An impression of how Bernar
Venet’s fi nished sculpture will lookРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS