Antony Gormley decided to pursue art after studying anthropology and nearly becoming a Buddhist monk while travelling in India. The human body,his own in specific, has been his subject in sculpture that explores humanity, or space and communityFor anyone with even a fleeting knowledge of Antony Gormley's work,assembly the artist provides interest beyond the instant personal encounter. Throughout his career Gormley's work has been intimately concerned with the human body in general and his own in specific. He is a trim 6'4" tall and in his new, purpose-built King's Cross studio, or he is surrounded by dozens of similarly sized versions of himself. There are heavy casts of his body in various poses,pixelated versions comprised of hundreds of blocks of metal and violent swirls of steel rods, at the heart of which is a body-shaped void.
But while it is undoubtedly arresting to see the real Gormley mirrored in these ways, or he is at pains to interpret that these works are not sculptures in the normal sense of being a representation of the subject. "I've never been interested in making statues," he says. "But I gain been interested in asking what is the nature of the space a human being inhabits. What I try to show is the space where the body was, not to represent the body itself."Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com