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Sir Antony Gormley has praised BTS for bringing a new audience to the “self-serving” art world as he unveiled an installation in New York in collaboration with the South Korean boyband.

The London artist’s sculpture, which opens today in Brooklyn Bridge Park, is formed of 11 miles of continuous looping aluminium tubing.

New York Clearing, which Sir Antony describes as a “drawing in space”, is part of Connect, BTS, a global project involving 22 artists that is sponsored by the seven-member group. As well as New York, it spans Berlin, Buenos Aires, Seoul and London, where Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen has created a digital forest at the Serpentine Gallery.

Sir Antony, 69, told the Evening Standard at a preview: “The fact is that the art world is a very self-serving and certainly insular world in which maybe individual freedom is traded to the highest bidder. And I am really interested in BTS’s offering of this bridge to a whole new, you could say, audience for the art of our time. I think that’s great.”

Since the band’s creation in 2013, BTS stars RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook have topped charts around the world and attracted millions of fans.

Sir Antony, however, had never heard of the group until he got a call in November inviting him to participate in their project. “I didn’t know anything about the whole K-pop phenomenon, but I’ve done a very quick kind of self-education,” he said.

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V, Suga, Jin, JungKook, Jimin, J-Hope and RM of BTS attend the 2018 Mnet Music Awards in Hong Kong Getty Images 27/35 January 15, 2019



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BTS accepts the Top Social Artist award onstage during the 2017 Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas, NV, USA Getty Images 10/35 November 19, 2017



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BTS pose in the press room at the 2017 American Music Awards Invision/AP 12/35 November 19, 2017



V and Jungkook of BTS perform during the 2017 American Music Awards Getty Images 13/35 November 19, 2017



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Tyra Banks with BTS attending the 2018 Billboard Music Awards Getty Images 20/35 May 20, 2018



BTS accepts the Top Social Artist award during the 2018 Billboard Music Awards Getty Images 21/35 October 14, 2018



BTS performs during a Korean cultural event as part of South Korean President official visit in France AFP/Getty Images 22/35 October 14, 2018



BTS performs during a Korean cultural event as part of South Korean President official visit in France AFP/Getty Images 23/35 October 14, 2018



BTS members stand on scene after they performed during a Korean cultural event as part of South Korean President official visit in France AFP/Getty Images 24/35 October 14, 2018



BTS performs during a Korean cultural event as part of South Korean president official visit to France AFP/Getty Images 25/35 October 14, 2018



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V, Suga, Jin, JungKook, Jimin, J-Hope and RM of BTS attend the 2018 Mnet Music Awards in Hong Kong Getty Images 27/35 January 15, 2019



BTS attend the Seoul Music Awards Getty Images 28/35 May 1, 2019



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South Korean boy band BTS poses in the press room with their awards during the 2019 Billboard Music Awards AFP/Getty Images 31/35 December 6, 2019



BTS attends 102.7 KIIS FM's Jingle Ball 2019 Presented by Capital One at the Forum on December 6, 2019 in Los Angeles Getty Images 32/35 December 31, 2019



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South Korean boy band BTS with James Corden on The Late Late Shaw

He has not met the band but has spoken to them twice by video call and describes them as “thoroughly bright, intelligent and wanting to make the world a better place and heal some of the pain.”

In the context of British and US politics, Sir Antony said to participate in such an international project felt “necessary”. He added: “The idea that the only way that we’re going to have a viable and just and planet-saving future is by celebrating and using the connections we’ve got. I deeply regret everything to do with Brexit and I deeply regret, in a way, the kind of identity politics and nationalism which is now seemingly happening in America, in France and places like Hungary to equal measure.”

However, Sir Antony said London remains a world leader for art. “London is the best place to be an artist. It’s still the primary place of exchange culturally, globally that means,” he said.

The New York sculpture is part of Sir Antony’s Clearing series and was inspired by a version exhibited in his Royal Academy retrospective last year.

But at double the size, the New York sculpture posed significant challenges. Sir Antony said a team of 20 to 30 people worked for nearly three weeks in temperatures as low as minus 9C and in high winds to erect it.