Ryan Gander’s dolos opens a sculpture trail for the Yorkshire coast – The Guardian

21 March 2022

Putting a large concrete block used to protect coastlines against erosion at the top of a cliff rather than at the foot of it is odd, the artist Ryan Gander cheerfully admits.

Calling it art may also get some people’s backs up too. But that’s fine. “I love Korean and Japanese food and I detest pizza,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have pizzerias.”

On Friday Gander’s new work will be unveiled to the public, the first in an ambitious new sculpture trail planned for the Yorkshire coast.

Positioned on Scarborough Castle headland, with its incredible coastal views, the work is in the form of a dolos, the concrete structures used as a defence against coastal erosion.

Gander said he loved the shapes. “They are giant, concrete, brutalist-looking geometric forms that tessellate well together on the back of a lorry so they can be moved and they get placed on a beach in stacks,” he said.

“What I love about them is they are so War of the Worlds, so alien. Dolos don’t seem of this world, there’s something extra terrestrial about them.”

Read the full piece and find out more about Invisible Dust's Wild Eye project via The Guardian.