Vittoria Benzine (Artnet) writes about the unveiling of A Place Beyond (2026), by Thomas J. Price, at London’s V & A East. At 18 feet tall, it is the largest sculpture that the British artist has ever produced. Benzine writes that the institution, which opened April 18, also announced a new commissions program this week. Price, whose father is Jamaican and mother is English, often honors London’s Windrush generation of Caribbean immigrants with his work.
Ahead of the opening of London’s V&A East on April 18, the institution has unveiled an outdoor artwork the public can already enjoy—A Place Beyond (2026), by Thomas J Price. At 18 feet tall, it’s the largest sculpture that the British artist has ever produced.
A Place Beyond jives with Price’s established style. Once again, the woman he’s immortalized in timeless bronze isn’t a real person, but a mash-up of found images, 3D scans, and the artist’s own observations. She wears a quotidian ensemble—another one of Price’s calling cards. Her demeanor is casual, her form unidealized. Like this, Price aims to critique classical sculpture and confound, or perhaps expose, viewer biases.
Price grew up in London, and works out of east London—the gritty, gentrifying neighborhood where the V&A East is situated. A Place Beyond marks his fourth sculpture in the area: Reaching Out appeared on the Line, London’s first public art trail, in 2013, followed by Network in 2020 and Warm Shores, installed outside Hackney Town Hall since June 2022.
Although the latter work honors London’s Windrush generation of Caribbean immigrants, the other three feature people holding smartphones. A Place Beyond features the sole figure not staring at hers. Its title seems to reference getting offline and out into the real world—or, in this case, the art world. This latest installment follows Price’s U.S. outing last year, when he landed another large sculpture in Times Square in New York. [. . .]
For full article, see https://news.artnet.com/art-world/thomas-j-price-tallest-sculpture-va-east-2753490
See more on the artist at https://www.thomasjprice.com/about
[Photo above by David Parry/PA Media Assignments: Thomas J Price unveiling ‘A Place Beyond’, outside of London’s V&A East Museum.]
Vittoria Benzine (Artnet) writes about the unveiling of A Place Beyond (2026), by Thomas J. Price, at London’s V & A East. At 18 feet tall, it is the largest sculpture that the British artist has ever produced. Benzine writes that the institution, which opened April 18, also announced a new commissions program this week. Price, whose
