It’s grim up North; so told those Justified Ancients of Mu Mu back in the early 1990s, and in the large part that cliché is to some extent a truth. But, what those south of Watford may find somewhat hard to believe, is that there’s an awful lot of exciting cultural activity going on and, even more surprisingly so, in the stereotypically dull North East town of Middlesbrough. Joining Erick va Egeraat’s Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Claes Oldenberg’s Bottle of Notes, Anish Kapoor’s gigantic public artwork Temenos and Will Alsop’s forthcoming Middlehaven Masterplan, is an elegant new public artwork by Ian McChesney; whose brilliantly surreal Out of the Strong Came Forth Sweetness we featured last year. Occupying a roundabout of a typically uninspiring A road, with further plans for continuing the project across more of the town’s main carriageway, Blaze is a sweeping, graceful installation of gold anodised aluminium; designed to utilise the movement of light throughout the day…