Young's voice

recorded 12 February 2015

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Gordon Young (born 1952) is a British artist specialising in public art, often including typographical elements. His Comedy Carpet on Blackpool Promenade (2011), at 2,200m², has been said to be the largest piece of public art in Britain.

Early life

He was born in Carlisle, Cumbria in 1952^[1] and trained at Coventry Polytechnic and at the Royal College of Art. He was curator of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and director of the Welsh Sculpture Trust before becoming a full-time artist in 1984.^[2][3]

Works

Young's works include:

• Fish Pavement (1992), Hull: a trail of 40 lifesize fish or groups of fish inset into pavements, leading the visitor around this city with its fishing heritage. They include a plaice in the Market Place, monkfish at Blackfriars Gate, and a shark outside a bank. Renovated in 2000.^[4][5][6]
• Cursing Stone and Reiver Pavement (2001), Carlisle: a walkway (connecting Tullie House Museum to Carlisle Castle under a main road) showing the names of border reiver families, and a 14-ton granite boulder showing part of a curse against these families which bishop Gavin Dunbar caused to be read out in churches in 1525.^[7][8][9]
• A Flock of Words (2002), Morecambe: a 300m pathway linking the railway station to the sea front, with proverbs and poems about birds set into the paving^[10][11]
• 7stanes (2008), Southern Scotland: a stone at each of seven mountain bike trails (including the Border Stane near the border, which has Auld Lang Syne and Jerusalem on its two sides with a hole in the middle through which hands can be shaken).^[3][12]
• Comedy Carpet (2011), Blackpool: reportedly Britain's largest piece of public art, an area of 2,200m² or 1,800m² (sources vary) on Festival Headland on the promenade, opposite Blackpool Tower. It shows jokes and punchlines from comedians who have performed in Blackpool over the decades, totalling 160,000 letters. Each letter is cut from granite and inset in white concrete, in a variety of typefaces.^[13][14] Five months after it was opened, the local council controversially removed part of the work because viewers were thought to be in danger of stepping backwards into the path of trams.^[15] The work earned Young the 2012 Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture.^[16] and in 2014 was joint winner of the International Society of Typographic Designers' International Typographic Award,^[17]
• Bird Stones (2014), Mill Road Cemetery, Cambridge: one wood and six stone pieces inspired by bird song.^[18]
• Radioactive Art (2017): a BBC Radio 4 programme about art to mark sites of radioactive waste storage.^[19]
• Ealing Rock (2018): stone sculpture in Elizabeth Square, Ealing, west London, bearing words from George Formby's song "Count your Blessings and Smile" from the 1940 film Let George Do It!, filmed at Ealing Studios.^[20][21]
• Down to earth (commissioned 2019): seven globes of brick with text, as part of Canal to Creek a public art project associated with the WestConnex road scheme in Sydney, Australia.^[22][23]