I recently installed a large-scale sculpture based on the structure of the human immune system’s key molecule, the antibody, as the signature piece of the new Scripps Research Institute’s campus in Jupiter, Florida:

Julian Voss-Andreae
Angel of the West, 2008
Stainless steel, 12′ × 12′ × 4′ (3.70 m x 3.70 × 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 I developed, 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.

© 2006 Julian Voss-Andreae

Angel of the West will be dedicated to the president of The Scripps Research Institute, eminent scientist Dr. Richard A. Lerner on February 26, 2009. Dr. Lerner is renowned for his research discovering and utilizing the catalytic properties of antibodies.