A curved walkway seems to float in midair, above the street, like the bridge in some Japanese watercolour. Stand in the middle and you have unexpected views of the Leeds street below. It is an aerial joy, but there is a bigger purpose: which is to carry viewers from the Victorian splendour of Leeds Art Gallery, with its satirical Hogarths and its swooning pre-Raphaelite damsels, its Rodins and Epsteins and early Paula Regos, to the Henry Moore Institute next door.
The bridge has been closed for several years, severing the connection between ancient and modern, and specifically between sculpture dating back to 1712 in the old building and forwards to the 21st century in the new. But now it has reopened, along with a refurbished sculpture institute intent on wider welcomes, brighter decor, better research facilities and so forth. The choice of artist to mark this improvement could hardly be more apt, even though he is scarcely known in this country: the brilliantly original Hany Armanious.
