Antony Gormley

SUSPENDED AND GRAVITY WORKS, 1984 - 2012

From 1984, I began to be interested in how you could use works as a lever to undermine the certainty of the spectator in his or her position in space.

The first SUSPENDED AND GRAVITY WORK is EDGE. Hung on the wall at bed height, it attempts to destabilise the normal projected subjective coordinates of front/ back, left/ right, up/ down. By being placed at the height of a normal sleeping person in a bed, it connects the reality of everyday with the state of the dream. EDGE was made in several versions, in iron, to hover both from the floor and from the ceiling, having different effects on the viewer.

KEEP acts as a similar lever, but with the arms outstretched, as in STANDING GROUND. SICK takes the position of a man at prayer, but with the knees at the level that they would be if the man were standing, to cause a certain disequilibrium or nausea in the viewer.

This concern with the somatic effects of the work on the viewer's perception continued with PORE and LEARNING TO THINK, both are works that introduce the body in impossible ways into architecture: LEARNING TO THINK treats the body of the room as if it were a filled swimming pool.

All of these experiments culminated in DRAWN, in which eight identical bodyforms, pressed into the corner of a room, were placed in different orientations, destabilising the room as if it was spinning freely through space.

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EDGE

EDGE, 1985
Lead, fibreglass, plaster and air
25 x 58 x 195 cm

UNTITLED

UNTITLED, 1987
Lead, fibreglass, plaster and air
Plank: 560 cm
Figure: 191 x 57 x 39 cm

EARTH ABOVE GROUND, 1986 - 1987

EARTH ABOVE GROUND, 1986 - 1987
Lead, fibreglass, plaster and air
205 x 32 x 55 cm

PORE

PORE, 1988
Lead, fibreglass, plaster and air
84 x 66 x 80 cm
Collection of Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden

AS ABOVE SO BELOW

AS ABOVE SO BELOW, 1988
Lead, fibreglass, plaster and air
188 x 181 x 35 cm
Collection of Louisana Museum, Denmark

LEARNING TO THINK

LEARNING TO THINK, 1991
Lead, fibreglass, air, 5 body-forms: each 173 x 56 x 31 cm
Installation view, Old Jail, Charleston, USA, 1993
Part of ‘Places with a Past: New Site-Specific Art at Charleston’s Spoleto Festival’, 1991

SITE

SITE, 1993
Lead, fibreglass, plaster and air
80 x 71 x 86 cm

DRAWN

DRAWN, 2000
Cast iron, 8 elements, each 154 x 133 x 187 cm
Installation view White Cube, London, England
Photograph by Stephen White, London

DRAWN

DRAWN, 2000
Cast iron, 8 elements, each 154 x 133 x 187 cm
Installation White Cube, London
Photograph by Stephen White, London

DRAWN

DRAWN, 2000
Cast iron, 8 elements, each 154 x 133 x 187 cm
Installation White Cube, London
Photograph by Stephen White, London

DRAWN

DRAWN, 2000
Cast iron, 8 elements, each 154 x 133 x 187 cm
Installation White Cube, London
Photograph by Stephen White, London

DRAWN

DRAWN, 2000
Cast iron, 8 elements, each 154 x 133 x 187 cm
Installation White Cube, London
Photograph by Stephen White, London

DRAWN APART

DRAWN APART, 2000
Cast iron, 154 x 133 x 187 cm
Edition of 8

EDGE II

EDGE II, 2000
Cast iron
38 x 54 x 193 cm
Installation view, TUSCIA ELECTA: Arte Contemporanea Nel Chianti, San Casciano Water Tower, Italy, 2002 - 2003
Photograph by Rabatti & Domingie

EDGE III, 2012

EDGE III, 2012
Cast iron
191 x 52 x 27 cm
Installation view, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, 2012
Photograph by Ela Bialkowska, OKNO STUDIO

SUBJECT, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, England, 2018SUBJECT, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, England, 2018 HOST, Galleria Continua, Beijing, China, 2016HOST, Galleria Continua, Beijing, China, 2016