26 May - 25 September 2022

GROUND brings together work spanning Gormley's career, from his early lead sculptures to new installations that are custom made for Voorlinden:

'Sculpture is no longer a medium of memorial and idealisation but a context in which human being can be examined. Sculpture is no longer representational: it is an instrument of investigation and questioning. I have called this exhibition GROUND to make this open invitation of sculpture clear. Without the viewer there is no show, without the gallery there is no context. The joy of this kind of exhibition is to allow the richness of the context itself to become activated by sculpture. For me, the body of the viewer is often the activating principle in a 'ground' of contemplation: the works become catalysts for awareness and grounds for physical and imaginative inhabitation.

In a time of chaos and a creeping feeling that everything is breaking down, we need art more than ever. It gives us space of stillness and silence in which we can discover shy bits of our own nature, but also wells of resilience and hope. With art we have tools to generate, through sense and first-hand experience, the ground for a truth that we might believe in. Never has the beholder's share been more important.' 

GROUND offers an overview of Antony Gormley's extensive oeuvre, from the very early Open Door (1975) and his early lead sculptures to some of his most recent installations like Clearing VIII (2022). The exhibition includes artworks from the Voorlinden collection that are on display for the first time in the Netherlands. This includes Passage (2016), a 12-metre-long human-shaped tunnel that offers a journey into darkness. Another Dutch premiere is Breathing Room (2010), in which you can experience standing in a three-dimensional drawing in space.