ANTONY GORMLEY – STILL STANDING
2012-07-16In the ground floor gallery, Gormley has created an installation of 17 body forms, orthogonally arranged within the architecture of the gallery space. Each sculpture has been built up from a series of small, rectangular iron blocks; modular architectonic forms that diagrammatically map the body’s internal volume, radically departing from anatomy.The works evoke imbalance and even entropy since key blocks in their visible support system have been removed and subtle displacements of weight mean that they are shifted from their own centre of gravity. Gormley has described these works as ’a kind of weaving of mass with void; a push and pull between blocks that are present and blocks that are absent‘. Poised in a suspended state, the works could be seen to investigate the verticality of the body, both in spatial terms but also in relation to the evolutionary trajectory of humans, progressing from an animal on all fours to an upright, cognitive being.
In the upstairs gallery, Gormley will present a single new sculpture from the ’Propper‘ series which further experiments with blocks as the fundamental basis for building or sculpture and uses the tectonics of post and lintel architecture – in the form of vertical and horizontal blocks – to translate body mass into the equivalent of a high-rise tower. Although these works appear like carefully constructed body-forms, their formation is actually more playful and free, reflecting the childhood game of placing blocks one on top of another, each time attempting to reach new levels of height and width before collapse and drawing attention to the eccentric loan paths of the build.
Exhibition runs through to September 15th, 2012
White Cube
48 Hoxton Square
London
N1 6PB
