Exhibition Review: Antony Gormley at the RA
Antony Gormley, Lost Horizon I, 2008
Photography by Oak Taylor-Smith
Cansu Çubukçu reviews the work of Antony Gormley that is currently on display at the Royal Academy of Arts.
What would be seen if we were to look through Gormley’s eyes as he attempts to answer the question: what does our psyche look like? Through wide-ranging materials such as iron, seawater, and even blood, the internationally renowned artist has defined the human body as a place that contains, according to him, “our experience, consciousness, and memory”.
Approaching the sculpt-master’s work is tricky. Outside the building you encounter a sleeping iron foetus, then on entry you are faced with two giant blocks dangling from the ceiling and a human figure framed by half-bitten slices of bread. One almost immediately thinks, what is going on? Gormley focuses not on the time or place we stand in, but rather the space in which our spiritual and mental being occupies any given moment. We are encouraged to discover the semantic depth in familiar shapes and forms, like the ripening process of an apple or a ceramic bowl placed on the ground. Our understanding of an every-day routine transcends its physicality and gains a more spiritual meaning. Gormley’s work occupies the gallery in an unexpected way. With men standing on the ceiling and frames laying on the ground, each exhibitor enjoys an individual storyline of his work.
Because of the architectural scale of Gormley’s instillations, spectators are transformed into weary travellers trying to navigate the spaces left around his colossal work. The scribbles on a piece of paper morph into a room-sized maze created with aluminium tubes. Visitors are forced to interact with the artwork by bending, stepping or turning sideways to navigate the space.
Antony Gormley, Co-ordinate VI, 2019
Photography by Oak Taylor-Smith
Meanwhile in Cave, visitors explore inside a claustrophobic pitch-black space and use their senses to find the exit. An Instagram bloggers’ favourite, Lost Horizon I is a room full of life-size identical humans defying gravity by standing on the walls parallel to the surface. Here, Gormley requests that we close our eyes, as the senses can be tricked into believing we too are the cast iron bodies floating above the limits of the physical world. With these artworks the relationship with space becomes not just a physical experience but a sensual one.
Gormley’s creative jungle, partially custom-made for the Royal Academy, is a successful depiction of the world unseen. Each gallery holds another mind-opening and thought-provoking adventure. Where else can you see an entire gallery floor covered with a mixture of seawater and clay? Gormley’s exhibition is not only something to be seen but to be felt - an experience not to be missed.
The Antony Gormley Exhibition is on at the Royal Academy of Arts until 3rd December 2019.