Antony Gormley: The Body as Space

Antony Gormley1950– | British | Sculpture, Installations

Gormley is an artist of increasing stature who has never been afraid to go against the grain of fashion. His characteristically (but not exclusively) male figures stand in landscapes and urban situations and are made of metal, visibly soldered together in static poses. They are casts of the artist’s own body made from plaster moulds of himself, then coated with wet plaster, which dries. He is then cut out of the resulting mould, which is reassembled and filled with liquid metal, released into the void, or beaten to take his form and the pieces are welded together.

Looking at his works in India, one can see that he is an artist trying to say something (in which he may or may not succeed) about the human condition.

Angel of the North, 1997–98. Height 65 ft (20 m). Gateshead, UK. The sculpture is on a site that was once a significant past coal-mining area, now defunct.

Antony Gormley, Lost Horizon I, 2008. 24 cast iron bodyforms, each 74 1/2 x 20 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches. Installation view, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2019. © Antony Gormley. Photo: David Parry, © Royal Academy of Arts.

Antony Gormley, Matrix III, 2019. Approximately 6 tons of 6 mm mild steel reinforcing mesh, 279 1/2 x 366 x 595 1/2 inches. Installation view, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2019. © Antony Gormley. Photo: © Oak Taylor-Smith.

KEY WORKS: Three Ways: Hold, Hole, and Passage, 1981 (London, Tate Collection); Maquette for Leeds Brick Man, 1986 (Leeds, City Art Gallery)