Jeeps Hung In the Sky
2008-08-08

Jeeps Hung In the Sky

                                                             -- Land Rover Sculpture by Jerry Judah

Concept Designer Gerry Judah attached a bevy of Land Rovers to a colossal steel framework at the Goodwood estate for their Festival of Speed in England last weekend. The 34-metre high sculpture, which weighed 120 tonnes and consisted of nearly 3500 parts connected by 4900 bolts, was commissioned by Land Rover and was fabricated by Littlehampton Welding, which also made Thomas Heatherwick's East Beach Cafe. Now let's enjoy this incredible  sculpture.

About Land Rover
Land Rover is an all-terrain vehicle and Multi Purpose Vehicle (MPV) manufacturer, based in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom, now operated as part of the Jaguar Land Rover business.
Originally the term Land Rover referred to one specific vehicle, a pioneering civilian all-terrain utility vehicle launched on April 30, 1948, at the Amsterdam Motor Show, but was later used as a brand for several distinct models, all capable of four-wheel drive.

Starting out as a model in the Rover Company's product range, the Land Rover brand developed, first as a marque, then as a separate company, developing a range of four-wheel drive capable vehicles under a succession of owners, including British Leyland, British Aerospace and BMW. In 2000, the company was sold by BMW to the Ford Motor Company, becoming part of their Premier Automotive Group. On March 26, 2008 Ford and Tata Motors announced an agreement that Ford would sell its Jaguar Land Rover operations to Tata. On June 2, 2008, the sale to Tata was completed by both parties.

Land Rover is one of the longest lived Four-wheel drive (4WD) brands (the only brand which is older is Jeep). 


About Gerry Judah 
Right, at a party in the swank London headquarters of the Louise T Blouin Foundation.

Gerry Judah is one of the leading installation artists in the UK. Born in Calcutta, Gerry Judah grew up in West Bengal before his family moved to London in the 1960's. After leaving school at 16, Judah took on a variety of menial jobs before attending Goldsmiths College to study Fine Art. A first class honours degree took him to the Slade School for a distinguished postgraduate course in Sculpture. Still influenced by a fusion of temples and breathtaking monuments of his childhood in India, Judah left university dreaming of creating monumental, heroic sculptures, but projects such as these required funding.

To raise money to build his sculptures, Judah started working in the theatre, building scenery for the Royal Shakespeare Company, English National Opera, Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House and the National Theatre. This experience gave him the confidence to design productions himself, leading to a new direction in music videos working with Godley and Crème and many other ground-breaking directors. Next came sets for TV commercials working with David Bailey and Ridley Scott amongst others. Judah's talent for art direction and model making was also in demand with advertising agencies where he created images for a number of award-winning campaigns such as Greenpeace's anti-fur posters.

And some years later, Judah found that his true passion was pure sculpture on a grand scale. In 1998, the Earl of March commissioned him to design a display for Ferrari at Goodwood. So he created a huge, triumphal arch with a Formula One car hanging inside. The success of this design led to free rein for other marques such as Porsche, Audi, Jaguar, Mercedes Benz, Renault, Ford and Rolls-Royce. Then it's easy to undertsand why Judah is the one invieted to design for this sculpture.