Did the boldness of Britain's public art pave the way to Brexit? | Jonathan Jones

From the Angel of the North to the Tower of London poppies, art on an epic scale has captured imaginations, fired up patriotic pride – and made us a Brexit nation

Emerging from customs at St Pancras International station last night, I found myself looking up at two colossal sculptures. Paul Day’s nine-metre bronze statue of a kissing couple loomed up in all its detailed smoochiness. Higher still, suspended from the roof, soared Ron Arad’s wave-like Thought of Train of Thought.

To their supporters and critics these may seem to be very different works of art – Arad’s cutting edge abstraction versus Day’s figurative statue – but seeing them with the eyes of a traveller who’d just cleared the UK border, they both spoke of national self-confidence: bold and brassy, a bit vulgar, and very loud.

Continue reading...