In Edinburgh, alongside a stream often called the Water of Leith, six bronze figures often called “6 TIMES” stand amid the present and beside bridges, peering enigmatically down the city waterway. Equally, in Liverpool, “Another Place” contains 100 life-size sculptures constituted of 17 molds that artist Antony Gormley (beforehand) took from his personal physique, put in completely alongside Crosby Seashore. In reality, the artist has dozens of everlasting installations all through the U.Ok. and all around the world, nearly all of which work together with shorelines, parkland, and historic websites.
Gormley has lengthy been fascinated by the connection between people, panorama, and the constructed surroundings. Whereas lots of his figurative sculptures retain pure, muscular curvatures and a true-to-life scale, he additionally ventures into summary territory, incorporating cubist and brutalist parts into geometric, three-dimensional varieties. Regardless of their blockiness, which we affiliate with constructed constructions of inflexible supplies like concrete and metal, his items are something however soulless.
Gormley’s current solo exhibition, Physique Buildings at Galleria Continua in Beijing, ran from November 2024 and April 2025 and varieties the premise of a brand new monograph of the identical title. Forthcoming from SKIRA, the quantity is slated for launch on October 7.
Utilizing terracotta clay and iron for items like “Resting Place II” and “Buttress,” Gormley faucets into supplies usually present in development within the type of bricks or angular frameworks. He describes his strategy as a way “to think and feel the body in this condition.” Whether or not organized on the ground in numerous positions or leaning towards partitions, his figures are concurrently unbiased of the structure and indelibly linked to it. “Buttress,” for instance, prompts us to inquire whether or not the wall is holding up the individual or the opposite method round.
New scholarship printed in Physique Buildings by Hou Hanru and Stephen Greenblatt explores Gormley’s engagement with China over the course of the previous three a long time. And a photograph essay by the artist traces his interactions with the area, sharing never-before-seen archival images that doc a 1995 analysis journey, the place he visited the exceptional military of terracotta warriors in Qin Shi Huang’s tomb in Xi’an.
Pre-order your copy of Physique Buildings on Bookshop, and discover extra of Gormley’s work on his web site.
