The Big 4 under construction

Photographer Nick Knight will be the first of four leading imagemakers and artists to take on a major new public art challenge in London – a 48-feet-high steel number 4 to be erected outside the headquarters of Channel 4.

The Big 4, shown here under construction, will be unveiled on 16 October. Designed by Freestate, in conjunction with engineers, Atelier One, it will mirror the channel’s award-winning idents with steel bars forming the 4 logo only when viewed from a certain angle. Over the next year, four different artists have been given the challenge of decorating it: Knight, whose work will take the form of a giant lenticular; Mark Titchner, shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2006 and Ghanaian sculptor El-Anatsui. The fourth artist will be the winner of a competition open to young arts graduates, run in conjunction with the Saatchi Gallery.

The work coincides with a major television series on public art and art in the built environment, the Big Art Project which airs in 2008.

The artists to take part in the project were chosen by a committee comprising Jan Younghusband – Channel 4 Commissioning Editor, Arts & Performance; Brett Foraker - Network Creative Director, Channel 4; Gus Casely-Hayford - Executive Director, Arts Strategy, Arts Council; Michael Morris - Co-Director, Artangel; Tim Marlow - Director of Exhibitions, White Cube Gallery and Will Gompertz - Director, Tate Media. Gompertz's role at the tate encompasses responsibility for all the institution's design, advertising and promotional materials, as well as overseeing its magazine, website and film-making functions. As such, we thought him an ideal candidate for the next in our Month In The Life series, A Month In The Life of a Client, which will appear in Creative Review's December issue.