Angel of the West, 2008

Stainless steel, 12′ x 12′ x 4′ (3.70 m x 3.70 x 1.20 m)

Location: The Scripps Research Institute (Jupiter, Florida)

Photograph by Christopher Fay

The sculpture plays on the striking similarity of both proportion and function of the antibody molecule and the human body. A representation of the antibody molecule, in a style developed by the artist, is surrounded by a ring evocative of Leonardo’s Renaissance icon Vitruvian Man (1490). Where man’s arms reach up to touch the circle with his hands, the molecule’s flexible ‘arms’ ending in highly specific hand-like regions hold on to the ring. The antibody’s ‘hands’ function to hold on to an intruder, for example a virus, thus tagging it for destruction through the immune system. Reminiscent of spiritual imagery, a set of rays emanates from the spot where the center of the human head would be located in Leonardo’s drawing.

(c) 2006 Julian Voss-Andreae

The antibody structural data used in the sculpture were published by Eduardo A. Padlan. (Padlan, E. A. Anatomy of the Antibody Molecule. Mol. Immunol. 31, 169 – 217, 1994)