Antony Gormley

Pairing one of the world’s greatest sculptors with one of today’s greatest writers on art, Shaping the World tells the story of human culture from prehistory to the present through the medium of sculpture. Practiced by every culture throughout the history of the world, sculpture is a universal art form that’s deeply rooted in the human psyche and may even predate the advent of language. In this wide-ranging book, internationally renowned sculptor Antony Gormley and distinguished art critic Martin Gayford consider sculpture as an art form related to humanity’s potential for thought and feeling, as well as to our urge to build, make pictures, practice religion, and develop philosophical thought. They take into account materials and techniques and consider overarching themes, such as space, light, and darkness. Drawing on examples from around the globe—ranging from the standing stones at Stenness, Orkney, dating from around 3100 BCE, and the Terracotta Army in China to Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty and Richard Serra’s steel structures—Shaping the World explores sculpture as a form of physical thought capable of altering the way people feel.

This book is published on the occasion of a comprehensive exhibition of works by the British sculptor Antony Gormley (b. 1950 in London). The central theme of his artistic work is the body and its relationship to space. Starting with his own body, the artist presents works in various positions: They crouch, hang, or expand into the space, lean against the wall, or lie on the floor. Gormley's preferred working materials include lead, iron, and steel. Antony Gormley. Learning to Be provides an overview of the artist's oeuvre.

One of the most exciting sculptors of our time, Antony Gormley is the creator of breathtaking public installations. Even casual fans will recognize Event Horizon, a collection of thirty-one life-size casts of the artist’s body that have been installed atop buildings in places like London’s South Bank and New York’s Madison Square, and Field, formed by tens of thousands of standing clay figurines overflowing across a room’s floor. Projects like these demonstrate Gormley’s ongoing interest in exploring the human form and its relationships with the rest of the material world, and in Antony Gormley on Sculpture, he shares valuable insight into his work and the history of sculpture itself. Combining commentary on his own works with discussions of other artists and the Eastern religious traditions that have inspired him, Gormley offers wisdom on topics such as the body in space, how to approach an environment when conceiving an installation, bringing mindfulness and internal balance to sculpture, and much more. Lavishly illustrated, this book will be of interest to not only art lovers, curators, and critics, but also artists and art students. Dynamic and thought-provoking, Antony Gormley on Sculpture is essential reading for anyone fascinated by sculpture and its long and complex history as a medium.

This catalogue for Antony Gormley’s largest-ever showing in Singapore features stunning full-colour plates of the installations at National Gallery Singapore, including the fifth Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission, Horizon Field Singapore. This publication also contains an interview with the artist by Eugene Tan, an essay by exhibition curators Qinyi Lim and Russell Storer, and an essay by cultural critic Ackbar Abbas, which continues his investigation into the situatedness of Gormley’s practice.

Over a period of 100 days from July to October 2009, 2,400 people stood on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square for one hour. They were free to do as they chose during this period in the spotlight. Nobody could predict what would happen or the scale of the response. Many thousands applied for the 2,400 slots and candidates were selected randomly. Millions watched the events as they were all filmed and available online. Hundreds of thousands continued to turn to the website long after the project itself was finished. The event was a phenomenon, which we are grappling to understand. The entire enterprise was the conceived by Antony Gormley, and can be seen as a further example of the artist's ability to tap into the public consciousness.The book will contain studio portraits of all the 'plinthers' prior to their appearance. Photographs will be drawn from innumerable sources, especially from those donated by the 'plinthers' themselves. The whole event has been remarkably photographed by Clare Richardson and the final edit will be drawn from a selection of 600 of her pictures of 'plinthers and public by day and night. Lee Hall will be writing a text about the importance of the square itself as a location. Essays will be included from Richard Sennett and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the art historian, as well as by both an anthropologist and a psychoanalyst. All the 'plinthers' were subject to extensive interviews set up by an oral history expert and their voices will contribute to the creation of a book that is more than a document. The aim is to capture the emotional intensity and the personally transformative effect that was created by one of the most extraordinary works of public art in our time.

An appreciation of the British artist who revitalized the human figure in sculpture.