Andrew Matthews/PA
Sculptor Sir Antony Gormley has described Brexit as the “biggest act of self-harm this country has ever played on itself” in a damning assessment of the UK’s split with the European Union.
The prominent artist, who was reported to have applied for a German passport in 2022 courtesy of his German mother, took aim at the Conservative Party ahead of his latest exhibition, Time Horizon, accusing them of trying to destroy the “creative, collective project” which found a way of putting “Europe back together after two devastating world wars”.
Highlighting the failures of Britain’s post-Brexit arrangements, he said: “I think of all the things we have lost, from Erasmus scholarships to all those musicians and artists who can no longer travel freely between Britain and Europe.”
In an interview with The Times, the artist also called the collapse of arts education in this country a “betrayal” and “tragic.
“There has been something like a 40 per cent reduction in people wanting to study art history or archaeology or art at secondary level.
“If we are not renewing the sources of creativity – be it singing, playing an instrument, dancing, it doesn’t matter what – how can we bring new forms into the world? We are all going to become slaves of AI; managers of late capitalism. We wouldn’t have got The Beatles without Liverpool College of Art,” he said.
When asked what a new government should do, he said art must not be sidelined in schools. “Politicians come and go, but what defines our hopes, fears and values is the art we produce. That will be remembered long after we’re all gone.”
It’s not the first time Sir Anthony has launched a broadside at the government.
In March of this year, the artist issued an excoriating attack on the UK government’s attitude towards art, stating on an episode of The Rest is Politics podcast that this “terrible government” has “consistently undermined art both in education and in the support of our institutions”.
Earlier, in 2022, he also criticised the UK’s split with the European Union at an exhibition in the Netherlands, saying: “I’m embarrassed about Brexit, it’s a practical disaster, a betrayal of my parents’ and grandparents’ sacrifice to make a Europe that was not going to be divided again. It’s a tragedy.”
His latest exhibition, Time Horizon, will run at Houghton Hall in Norfolk from 21 April to 31 October.
Related: British expats in disarray as Spain announces plans to scrap ‘golden visa’ scheme
