ARTISTS
Antony Gormley: In Habit
We live in three places simultaneously: in the body, in the built world and on this earth. Increasingly, the second body (the built world), is the one that controls us the most. In devising a habitus in relation to a habitat, we reinforce 鈥 through habit 鈥 modes of behaviour that both protect and alienate us from the immediate life of the body and the cosmic life of the planet. 鈥 Antony Gormley (2020)
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris presents In Habit, an exhibition of new sculptures and drawings by Antony Gormley.
Run II, the immersive central work in this exhibition, uses the simplest means to activate and energise space, to create awareness of the way we move about in our constructed habitat. Run II is a singular, continuous, square 40 x 40 mm aluminium tube that fills the space of the main gallery in snaking 90-degree turns, the horizontal sections recalling heights familiar to us in our built environment: chair or table, worktop or shelf, door or ceiling.
Run II runs freely through the gallery and, by stepping through the work, our bodies can recognise and be liberated from the effects of what the Japanese call the culture of the chair. Run II is, in Antony Gormley鈥檚 words, 鈥榓 zone of reflexivity in which light, air, volume and your displaced biomass are all tuned by the orthogonal yet free play鈥. By encouraging you to be a figure in a ground, you become the viewed for other viewers and, in doing so, can use the space of art as an emergent field. Gormley invites us to pause and consider our dependency on this second habitat 鈥 the 鈥榖ody of architecture鈥 鈥 and to create an awareness of the ground itself, to 鈥榚arth鈥 you.
In his essay for the exhibition catalogue, art historian Jon Wood writes: 鈥業t is not difficult to see Run II as part of an important turning point for his sculpture鈥 a turn from the body of the artist to that of the viewer. Run II also, it should be said, signals continuity: extending the reach of a larger sculptural project that, with the human body 鈥 both of the artist and the viewer 鈥 at its centre, has been gradually developing over the last forty years. It is this ongoing, investigative project that gives Gormley鈥檚 work its unique and important place within the history of sculpture鈥 More is now asked of viewers of Gormley鈥檚 work. They are asked to be more proactive and participatory 鈥 to dig deeper, you might say. Invitations to move, look and feel coincide with invitations to interpret and decipher: to read the work as well as sense it, and to enter into its realm physically and cerebrally, as much as emotionally.鈥
Alongside this new large-scale, site-specific work are several life-size cast iron 鈥楲iners鈥: single open lines, multiple lines and endless lines without beginning or end, that explore the internal volume of the human body, rather like the London Underground map. Like Run II, these works are seen by Gormley as 鈥榙iagnostic instruments鈥 that attempt to re-locate you in your first habitat 鈥 your body. 鈥業 do not want to illustrate emotion or sensation, but these rusty maps might be helped by your projection of what it feels like to do a shoulder stand 鈥 Fill; lie on your side 鈥 Level; balance on your bottom while lifting your head and feet 鈥 Float; feel your relationship to the earth while balancing on your feet and clasping your legs as tight to the body as possible 鈥 Nest.鈥
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We live in three places simultaneously: in the body, in the built world and on this earth. Increasingly, the second body (the built world), is the one that controls us the most. In devising a habitus in relation to a habitat, we reinforce 鈥 through habit 鈥 modes of behaviour that both protect and alienate us from the immediate life of the body and the cosmic life of the planet. 鈥 Antony Gormley (2020)
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris presents In Habit, an exhibition of new sculptures and drawings by Antony Gormley.
Run II, the immersive central work in this exhibition, uses the simplest means to activate and energise space, to create awareness of the way we move about in our constructed habitat. Run II is a singular, continuous, square 40 x 40 mm aluminium tube that fills the space of the main gallery in snaking 90-degree turns, the horizontal sections recalling heights familiar to us in our built environment: chair or table, worktop or shelf, door or ceiling.
Run II runs freely through the gallery and, by stepping through the work, our bodies can recognise and be liberated from the effects of what the Japanese call the culture of the chair. Run II is, in Antony Gormley鈥檚 words, 鈥榓 zone of reflexivity in which light, air, volume and your displaced biomass are all tuned by the orthogonal yet free play鈥. By encouraging you to be a figure in a ground, you become the viewed for other viewers and, in doing so, can use the space of art as an emergent field. Gormley invites us to pause and consider our dependency on this second habitat 鈥 the 鈥榖ody of architecture鈥 鈥 and to create an awareness of the ground itself, to 鈥榚arth鈥 you.
In his essay for the exhibition catalogue, art historian Jon Wood writes: 鈥業t is not difficult to see Run II as part of an important turning point for his sculpture鈥 a turn from the body of the artist to that of the viewer. Run II also, it should be said, signals continuity: extending the reach of a larger sculptural project that, with the human body 鈥 both of the artist and the viewer 鈥 at its centre, has been gradually developing over the last forty years. It is this ongoing, investigative project that gives Gormley鈥檚 work its unique and important place within the history of sculpture鈥 More is now asked of viewers of Gormley鈥檚 work. They are asked to be more proactive and participatory 鈥 to dig deeper, you might say. Invitations to move, look and feel coincide with invitations to interpret and decipher: to read the work as well as sense it, and to enter into its realm physically and cerebrally, as much as emotionally.鈥
Alongside this new large-scale, site-specific work are several life-size cast iron 鈥楲iners鈥: single open lines, multiple lines and endless lines without beginning or end, that explore the internal volume of the human body, rather like the London Underground map. Like Run II, these works are seen by Gormley as 鈥榙iagnostic instruments鈥 that attempt to re-locate you in your first habitat 鈥 your body. 鈥業 do not want to illustrate emotion or sensation, but these rusty maps might be helped by your projection of what it feels like to do a shoulder stand 鈥 Fill; lie on your side 鈥 Level; balance on your bottom while lifting your head and feet 鈥 Float; feel your relationship to the earth while balancing on your feet and clasping your legs as tight to the body as possible 鈥 Nest.鈥
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Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris presents In Habit, an exhibition of new sculptures and drawings by Antony Gormley, centred around one immersive site-specific installation.
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