A review by Mary Couzens for EXTRA! EXTRA!

Antony Gormley, whose artistic career spans twenty-five years, includes a Turner Prize win in 1994 as well as South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999.  Since the 80’s, Gormley’s art has centered on the notion of human beings as individual entities, isolated by their own skins. As such, his artistic explorations have led him into using his own body as material, tool and subject, imbuing his figures with, as he puts it, ‘every moment a lived moment in real time.’ Blind Light, his first exhibition in a major London gallery, not only serves as a retrospective of his work, but also features three new pieces of art especially commissioned by the Hayward.

The colossal, six-metre high Space Station (2007) greets visitors as they first enter into the gallery. The mammoth piece is constructed from twenty-two tonnes of orton steel plate shaped into numerous multi-sized box like shapes, perforated with small squares. Its power exists not only in its size, but also via the ‘inner life’ the artist has imbued the epic work with. Although the piece is also said to be seen as a human form curled into a foetal position when viewed from a distance that was not readily visible, perhaps because greater distance than the gallery allows would be needed for that aspect to be apparent. The massive artwork however, is oddly poignant, for as is typical with Gormley’s work, the piece is also, somehow, reflective of transience. Few artists would be capable of designing a work that is so physically imposing, and also manage to imbue it with a sense of impermanence. When asked about them during the Q & A, Gormley justifiably paid tribute to the engineers who work along with him on the creation of his artworks.

Space Station, 2007

Courtesy of the artist and Jay Jopling / White Cube, London
Photo: © Stephen White

In keeping with the artist’s interest in incorporating ‘real time’ into his work process, Allotment II (1996) consists of a series of 300 reinforced concrete structures of varying dimensions which have actually been derived from the measurements of local inhabitants of Malmo, and, as such, the installation is at once strangely soothing and disconcerting.  Gormley spoke of the individual artworks as markers of sorts, tombstones, if you will, and/or indicators of lives in progress. ‘We all have bodies,’ he claims, ‘but we also exist within architecture.’ This notion is aptly illustrated through man’s close identification with streets and/or areas of specific places.

Considering all the photos taken of the artist at its entrance, it was apparent that he considers Blind Light, the exhibition’s title piece, to be the show’s star. Considered separately, toughened low iron glass, fluorescent light, ultrasonic humidifiers and water may seem like nothing new in terms of innovative components of art. However, when combined in the context of a cloistered chamber, its dense void exudes irresistible allure as silhouettes of participants can be seen, groping their way along its transparent walls. When curiosity got the better of me, I gingerly ventured forth into the blinding white mist and, so disorienting was its blanking effect that once I stepped away from the installation’s transparent walls, all sense of direction seemed irrevocably lost. Yet the artist himself could be seen amiably plunging into its centre more than once, cheerily wiping the mist from his glasses on his return.

Hatch (2007) is another of the artist’s newly created, perception challenging installations, though its construction is deceptively simplistic, with its everyday components of aluminum tubing, plywood and plexiglass. Once inside, there is a tendency to step carefully as the variables give the impression that there are barriers where none exist. Peering through the tiny cubes cut into its walls, one sometimes catches glimpses of illusionary tunnels. Both Blind Light and Hatch serve as indications of the artist’s movement towards the creation of interactive experiences for the viewer.

Gormley purists will be happy to learn that the upper floor and some of the walls of the gallery house several of his trademark experiments with human form based pieces. In keeping with the artist’s philosophy, pieces are displayed on all levels of the gallery in order to encourage viewers to interact more fully within the context of their space. The sudden shift in mood generated by the sight of figures hanging by their heels in a cavernous space or a single form, huddled against a wall is inexplicable. Perhaps this is because, as the artist himself puts it, he regards the body as ‘a place of becoming, where events happen,’ as it is the ‘only bit of the material world you can work on from the inside.’ His contention that ‘20^th Century sculpture has not been good at dealing with emotion’ came to mind when in a roomful of figure based artworks.  Mother’s Pride, a wall piece made up of countless wax coated slices of white bread which, at its centre appeared to be ‘eaten’ into a silhouette of Gormley’s body in a fetal position adds a gentle note of humour.

The ambitious installation Event Horizon (2007) has been much publicized of late and anyone who’s been anywhere near the Hayward lately, would have had a good chance of spying one or more of the figures in it, providing they’ve looked upward. The artwork features twenty-seven fiberglass and four cast iron life-size casts of the artist’s body, strategically placed atop roofs of public buildings and on walkways within a 1.5 kilometer radius of the gallery, transforming its three sculpture terraces into wide angle viewing areas.

As an exhibition, Blind Light leaves one with an appreciation of one man’s observations on, as Gormley himself puts it, ‘what it means to be alive.’  It is a heady theme and one that provides much food for lingering afterthought. As I left the gallery, I paused and looked up, allowing my eyes to scan the horizon for the lone contemplative Gormley figures standing astride the rooftops of neigbouring buildings. For, as the artist himself claims, Event Horizon, like much of his work is not merely meant to be ‘decorative or representational’, but to serve as a reminder of man’s singular experience within the context of his own form and consciousness in the here and now.

The Hayward

Southbank Centre

Belvedere Road

London SE1 8XX

020 7921 0813

www.southbankcentre.co.uk/gormley

Open daily 10am – 6pm

Late nights Friday and Saturday until 10pm

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