City's statue of Alan Turing is 'twin' to West Hoe artwork

TRIBUTE BEARS INTENTIONAL LIKENESS TO RUSTY REG

- WILLIAM TELFORD

PLYMOUTH'S £764,000 "Rusty Reg" waterfront statue has been delighting and infuriating the city's art lovers for the past two years and now it appears it has a twin - in Cambridge.

A new sculpture commemorating wartime codebreaker Alan Turing is to be installed in the grounds of Cambridge University's King's College, and it looks just like the statue gazing thoughtfully out to sea from the West Hoe Pier.

But the similarity between Plymouth's Look II and Cambridge's Turing tribute, noted by Herald readers, is, it seems, intentional.

Both are the work of celebrated British sculptor Antony Gormley and both come from his Slabworks series.

These Cast Slabworks are a batch of solid cast iron objects which "reference the stacking, propping and cantilever" of the Corten steel slabs of the artist's gas-cut steel Constructed Slabworks series, which look similar but are a darker colour.

The "emotional language" of the Cast Slabworks also continues that of Mr Gormley's Blockworks series, which are also similar but are formed from solid iron blocks.