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New York Times
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Unlocking the Mysteries of Antony Gormley's Art
The British sculptor Antony Gormley is a native Londoner who has been a fixture on the city's art scene for decades and the subject of many museum shows all over the world, including a 2019 survey at the Royal Academy of Arts. He won the prestigious Turner Prize in 1994 and was even knighted in 2014, gaining enough fame along the way to occasionally get the tabloid treatment from the British press ('Gorm Blimey: Statue by Sir Antony Gormley branded 'hideous' and a 'waste of money,'' read a 2020 headline in The Sun.) 'I'm one of the ones they like to beat on,' Gormley, 74, said with a laugh on a video call in April from his country house in Norfolk, northeast of London. Not that it has scared him from the limelight. Indeed, Gormley likes to talk about his art and its meaning, one on one or to a crowd. His latest show, 'Antony Gormley: Witness, Early Lead Works,' is on view until June 8 at White Cube gallery's Mason's Yard space in London, and he spoke at the Art for Tomorrow conference in Milan last week on topics that included art's origins as a collective enterprise, the importance of collaboration and his own drive to create. 'I don't have a choice about what I do,' he said. The gallery show is a skeleton key that helps to unlock some of the mysteries of his art, and most of the works are not for sale. Although he became perhaps best known for figural sculptures — including the large public work 'Angel of the North' (1998), a stylized, winged figure, which overlooks the A1 highway in Gateshead, England — his art is rooted in the Conceptual art of the 1970s. 'The show starts with five works that were all made prior to using my own body,' Gormley said, referring to a pivot point in 1981 that helped define the rest of his career. 'They deal with found objects in one way or another, but always using the medium of lead.' Those works include 'Land Sea and Air I' (1977-79), which at first glance looks like three stones of similar shape; actually, the forms are oxidized lead cases, one of them surrounding a stone he brought back from Ireland. One is filled with water and one is empty, or 'filled with air,' as Gormley put it. 'This was me investigating the distinction between substance and appearance, or between the skin of the thing and its mass,' Gormley said, adding that at the time it was made, there was widespread anxiety about nuclear proliferation. By using the basic element of life, he said, it was a way of highlighting 'the seeds of a future world beyond potential nuclear destruction.' Artistically, it was a breakthrough. 'I was so excited the night that I made that piece, I couldn't sleep,' Gormley recalled. 'I thought, 'This is where I want to go. This is the foundation of what I'm going to do with my life.'' Jay Jopling, a longtime dealer of Gormley's and the founder of White Cube, recalled his first encounter with the artist some four decades ago. Jopling was only around 20 and studying art history, and he arranged to meet Gormley, whose work he already admired. Over a cup of tea, the young Jopling asked Gormley about the meaning of his work. 'He said, 'My work is about what it means to be alive and alone and alert on this planet,'' Jopling said. 'It was a nice, succinct answer.' As his work was getting critical attention in the early 1980s, Gormley was not alone. Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain, noted that British art of the 20th century has always been particularly strong in sculpture. Farquharson said that Gormley was 'a key figure in a generation of several sculptors who emerged in the early '80s — Anish Kapoor, Richard Deacon, Tony Cragg, Alison Wilding and others.' The White Cube show includes several works on paper from the 1980s, and has five lead sculptures from that decade and the following one; they show Gormley's evolution toward his own version of figuration. The sculptures include 'Home and the World II' (1986-96) a striding figure with an 18-foot-long house where its head should be, and 'Witness II' (1993), a figure seated on the ground with its head tucked into folded arms. The materials for both include lead, fiberglass, plaster and air, but they could almost include Gormley himself, given that at the time, he had to be encased in a plaster mold to make them. 'It was really messy,' he said of a process that had him covered in cling wrap for protection, and then plaster, for an hour or two with a hole at his mouth to breathe. Meditation and breathing exercises were employed, skills that he first gleaned on a two-year stint in India that came between his graduation from Cambridge University and his art degrees from Goldsmiths College and the Slade School of Fine Art. Some earlier training also helped. 'I had a good Catholic upbringing, so I knew how to be obedient,' Gormley said. Once he was out of it, the completed plaster mold was then covered in fiberglass to 'harden it up,' Gormley said. Finally, the work was covered in thin sheets of lead, which he and an assistant pounded with a rubber hammer, a highly exertive way of making art. Around two decades ago, Gormley began to move toward 3-D scanning. But he said that using his own body was the essential element, not the particular process. 'I wanted to cut out that artist-model distancing device,' he said. 'I've stuck with the idea that my particular example of the universal human condition is good enough for me.' Despite his renown in Britain, Gormley has had less exposure in the United States. But his first solo museum survey in the country will be on view at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas later this year, from Sept. 12 to Jan. 4. 'He's one of the chief practitioners who has expanded how we think about the figure and the body,' said Jed Morse, the Nasher's chief curator. For viewers, the Nasher show will help complete the picture of Gormley's trajectory after the early 1990s, which saw him embark in new directions. In some works at the Nasher, like the Corten steel sculpture 'Model Model II' (2022), Gormley turns his body into a series of boxy forms — in a way that could be seen as Cubist or pixelated, or both. Gormley is constantly working, and drawing is a key activity for him. He pulled out a small notebook from his jacket pocket, full of sketches of bodies. 'I couldn't live without this,' he said. Having his artistic process result in heavy lead sculptures, as seen in the White Cube show, may be even more resonant now, much further along in the digital age than when they were made. 'Sculpture can bring you back to something firsthand and palpable,' he said. 'These are existential objects that hopefully can be used as instruments to investigate your own experience.'
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Antony Gormley review – here come the Gorminators, those welded warriors for humanity
If you think nostrils are just holes to breathe through, you've not spent enough time with Antony Gormley. A figure lying on its back, in this show of his early works, is made of solid sheets of lead, welded neatly into the form of a man, based like so much of his work on the dimensions of Gormley's own body. Two small holes at the nose are the only perforations in an otherwise uniform metal structure. They're not nostrils though, oh no: 'Two holes at the nose reinforce the notion of the body as a conduit between physical and transcendent realms.' Gesundheit! It's the kind of overblown over-justification that has always blighted the work of Gormley. His body forms dot the country, peering out to sea along Crosby Beach, standing with wings spread at Gateshead, looming out at you from the lobbies of countless bank HQs. For the past 30-odd years, Gormley has been everywhere, his simple, stark figures acting as cyphers for the very act of existence in the modern world. Where you see a Gorm, you see yourself, you see humankind, persevering, surviving in nature, in the sea, in banks. White Cube is focusing on his first steps towards becoming a household name, with early experiments in lead. These are the first footprints left by a giant of contemporary British art. The earliest, Land Sea and Air from 1977-79, is three boulder forms plopped on the ground, all grey and weathered and wrapped in lead. One is a granite rock from a beach in Ireland, the other two are water and air from the same place, though you'll never know which is which unless you pick them up or give them a quick toe punt (don't try it – the security guards are extremely vigilant at White Cube). Despite its obvious poisonous qualities, the lead wrapping acts as a form of preservation, saving these elemental materials from destruction. And destruction at the time the work was made must have felt imminent, with Europe haunted by the cold war, nuclear annihilation a constant threat. So Gormley turned to lead, the material of bullets, to save, record and preserve what we are. The middle of the gallery is filled with objects arranged in size, starting at a pea then a banana, a grenade, a lemon, a lightbulb, a club, a squash, a ball, each wrapped in lead. Next to it, lead bullets have been left a pile, a grey shape on the wall is a lead-wrapped machete. Violence, death, injury – Gormley saw it everywhere. The symbolism is incredibly heavy-handed, appropriately enough for lead, but it works. Downstairs things get more familiar, as the gallery gets filled with Gorminators, the body-shaped statues that have become his signature. One lies face down with legs spread on the cold concrete, another pulls its knees into its chest and buries its head in its arms. The largest, a walking figure in the middle of the space, has had its head swapped for a huge 5m-long building. Each work is made of lead, the welding lines acting like enormous scars across their bodies. They're desolate, desperate things. Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion The messaging might seem clear, but Gormley always pushes for grandiosity, and I think that's a shame. These can't just be left as bodies preserved against imminent death. Instead, he says things like: 'I have always thought of the darkness of the body as being equivalent to the darkness of the universe.' The insistence on the universal and transcendent, the idea of Gormley's body as a metaphor, a stand-in for wider humanity, has always grated. It pulls it all out of the real and shoves it into the realm of existential nonsense. It makes the reasoning behind the work so vague and overblown, leaving it pretty meaninglessness in the process. Which is a pity, because if you can manage to wade through the fog of waffle that engulfs these early pieces, there's something quite special here. These are works of profound fear and paranoia. The lead that has replaced the flesh on these bodies is the material of war. They are human munitions now, bullets waiting to be fired, shields ready to be sacrificed. They cower in fear or lie prone waiting for inevitable annihilation. Everywhere he looks, he seem to see death looming. The work might be a product of its time, but it still feels upsettingly relevant today Anthony Gormley: Witness is at White Cube, London, until 8 June
South China Morning Post
23-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Showtime: 4 unmissable art exhibitions to keep you cultured
Emma McIntyre: Among My Swan Tiepolo pink (2024) by Emma McIntyre. Photo: courtesy Emma McIntyre / Château Shatto (Los Angeles) / David Zwirner (New York) New Zealand-born, Los Angeles-based artist Emma McIntyre presents 'Among My Swan', her first solo show in Asia. Known for vivid, chromatic abstractions, McIntyre's paintings blend oils with unconventional materials such as oxidised iron to create deeply textured, transformative works. This series explores the alchemical possibilities of painting, drawing connections between the artist's instincts, the forces of nature and art history. Each piece is part of an evolving network of discovery, reflecting her protean and experimental approach to the medium. David Zwirner, 5-6/F, H Queen's, 80 Queen's Road Central, March 25 to May 10; Lynne Drexler: The Seventies Lynne Drexler, Burst Blossom (1971). Photo: White Cube/ Frankie Tyska White Cube presents the first Asian exhibition of works by the late American painter affiliated with the second-generation abstract expressionist movement. 'Lynne Drexler: The Seventies' features never-before-seen chromatic landscapes created during a transformative decade in her career. Influenced by impressionism, fauvism and classical music, Drexler's tessellated compositions radiate kinetic energy and reflect her deep connection to the natural world. This exhibition follows her solo show at White Cube's Mason's Yard in London, marking a continuation of the gallery's representation of her archive.
Euronews
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
London Original Print Fair 2025: What are this year's highlights?
Timeless and tangible, printmaking democratised art collecting and continues to shape social values through its boundary-pushing creative and technological achievements. For four decades now, the London Original Print Fair (LOPF) has been at the forefront of championing the medium - a milestone being celebrated through a dynamic programme of classic and contemporary works at Somerset House from 20-23 March 2025. Featuring specially created new designs and exclusive editions by legendary artists like Peter Blake, David Shrigley, Gavin Turk, Nicole Farhi and more, it's a rare opportunity to own something truly unique. Founded in 1985 by a small group of eight print dealers, LOPF has grown to international acclaim as London's longest running art fair, crossing eras and styles through vast showcases that capture every contour of the craft. 'Celebrating 40 years of the London Original Print Fair is a proud moment for all of us," says Helen Rosslyn, Director of the London Original Print Fair. "Over the decades, we've witnessed the remarkable evolution of printmaking, and it's been incredibly rewarding to see the growing appreciation for this medium." The event will feature more than 40 exhibitors, including contributions from publishers, studios and leading international galleries like White Cube, Hauser & Wirth, Marcus Campbell Art Books, Taymour Grahne Projects, Tin Man Art, India Printmaker House and Hommage. The displayed works span six centuries of printmaking, from Old Masters to contemporary talents that collectively capture the breadth of an ever-evolving medium grounded in perennial appeal. Some of this year's works have been commissioned in honour of the fair's 40th anniversary - a highlight being London-based artist Tom Hammick's striking 1930s-style woodcut poster. "I decided to make an edition variable woodcut printed in many colours so that in their digital reproduction of my print poster it would be like a flip book full of Pantone colours," Hammick tells Euronews Culture. "As far as the composition of the images goes, I wanted to combine a schematic of the extraordinary facade of Somerset House with a young couple literally skipping up the red carpet to the private view." Manifold Editions, who specialise in the publication of limited edition art prints, will also pay tribute to 40 years of the fair through two exciting new launches. These include a series of iconic pigment prints by British artist Gavin Turk and light-hued etchings by Canadian artist Chris Levine, as well as new editions of prints by Grayson Perry, Marc Quinn and Boo Saville. Female printmakers lead the White Cube's contributions, with prints by Tracey Emin, Louise Giovanelli and IIana Savdie, while the contemporary art gallery Hauser & Wirth intertwines the historical and modern through a diverse selection featuring Swiss artist Dieter Roth, South African printmaker William Kentridge, Hungarian abstract artist Rita Ackermann, and a large silkscreen by Rashid Johnson. In another exclusive, Jealous gallery and studio are releasing a limited-edition print by the Turner-nominated artist David Shrigley, beloved for his contemporary child-like illustrations. "When we started, the fair was mostly about Old Masters. Now, it's largely contemporary printmakers, with more artists embracing print as a vital part of their practice," Rosslyn tells Euronews Culture. "Young collectors have really embraced printmaking too, drawn to its accessibility, creativity, and the craftsmanship behind it." Exhibiting for the first time, Tin Man Art gallery brings some fascinating works related to British band Radiohead, including a new Stanley Donwood series with Thom Yorke, created at the famous fine art printing studio Idem Paris. Meanwhile, fans of Peter Blake should head to the CCA Galleries' booth for a treat, which will launch a special edition print by the pop art icon - and other new editions of works from French artist Nicole Farhi and Scottish painter Bruce Mclean. For the first time, this year's event brings greater representation of international printmakers and exhibitors from China, Japan and India. India Printmaker House will share limited edition prints by seven emerging artists from India and the UK Indian diaspora, while galleries Hanga Ten, Tokyo Art and TAG Fine Arts all represent contemporary Japanese artists. This includes an unmissable series by Katsutoshi Yuasa, who recently celebrated the Venice Biennale's 60th anniversary with his 'Immortal Venice' hand-carved woodcut print. Perhaps the greatest joy of LOPF is its devotion to the history of printmaking, and those that pioneered it from the 18th-century onwards. Through a carefully curated selection of masterworks, the fair opens a portal to the past that laps at the present. Of note are Vistavka Fine Art Gallery's rare 18th-century prints, including highly-sought after proofs by Philibert-Louis Debucourt and early engravings from Pierre Filloeul. The 20th-century in particular sparked a revival of the art form, with many influential creators turning away from its heavily commercialised elements and implementing traditional techniques to reframe printmaking as standalone works of art. These examples undercurrent LOPF, with galleries such as Abbott & Holder sharing works by pre and post-war trailblazers like Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious and James McNeill Whistler. Gwen Hughes Fine Art will also showcase a range of 1950s-1990s Modern British works from artists including Sandra Blow, Prunella Clough, Howard Hodgkin, and Kim Lim. The 'London, New York, Bristol' exhibition is another must-see, centred around leading 20th-century greats like David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Banksy, including a rare portrait print of Elizabeth Taylor that's signed by Warhol and Taylor. If Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Joan Miró are more your thing, visit first-time exhibitors Hommage Art, who will have a wide range of original exhibition posters and lithographs curated by prestigious print houses like Mourlot. As you've likely gathered, there really is something for everyone here - but collecting or not, most enticing is the fair's communal embrace of non-hierarchical art. "What really sets LOPF apart is the atmosphere," Rosslyn says. "It's not just about buying prints; it's about meeting the artists and dealers, hearing their stories, and discovering something new. Whether it's your first piece or your latest addition, it's an inspiring, welcoming space to explore and collect." The London Original Print Fair takes place from 20-23 March 2025 at Somerset House in London, UK. Italian architect Stefano Boeri and his studio have won the MIPIM award in the Best Mix-Use Project category for their Wonderwoods Vertical Forest building in the Netherlands. The award, presented at the annual MIPIM international real estate trade show held in Cannes, recognises the most 'useful, sustainable and visionary projects' in the real estate industry. Located in Utrecht, Wonderwoods Vertical Forest is a 104-metre tower that includes 360 trees and 50,000 plants on its façades, the 'equivalent to the vegetation of a hectare of forest.' The project aims to improve the quality of life in the area, by enhancing biodiversity and absorbing carbon dioxide. 'This is a real urban ecosystem, a haven for the biodiversity of living species', the Stefano Boeri Architetti studio said in a statement. The high-rise, which opened in February, is the first vertical forest in the Netherlands to incorporate both apartments and public spaces, including services and commercial areas. 'The recognition of the MIPIM Award as the best 'Mixed Use' building in the world, has captured the profoundly urban character of Wonderwoods: a multipurpose and highly biodiverse architecture, open to the daily life of the citizens, plants and birds of Utrecht', said architect Francesca Cesa Bianchi during the award ceremony on 13 March. Stefano Boeri is known for his innovate urban forestry designs. One of his most famous projects is the Bosco Verticale – literally the "Vertical Forest" – two residential towers covered in vegetation, built in Milan. Completed in 2014, the creation received worldwide recognition in the architecture community, winning the 2014 International Highrise Award and the 2015 Best Tall Building Worldwide. Stefano Boeri went on to replicate his design all over the world. In 2021, he opened the Trudo Vertical Forest in the Netherlands, applying for the first time his concept to a social housing complex. The Stefano Boeri Architetti studio also has ongoing projects in China and Dubai. 'I try to promote urban forestation because that's what we need," Boeri told Euronews in 2021. "We have to multiply the number of trees everywhere. And the reasons are very clear. It's a faster, cheaper and more inclusive way to try to take down global warming.'
The Guardian
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Agnès B: ‘I hate fashion. It's not interesting.'
During World War Two I remember standing in total darkness in a corridor at our home in Versailles, listening to the bombs. I was two years old. The sound scared me so much that my parents sent me to their dear friends' farm in Normandy, where I stayed for a long time. They called me 'Lamb' and I called them 'Shepherd' and 'Shepherdess'.Mother was complicated: strict, sometimes very nervous, often furious for no reason. She fought a lot with my father. Inside and outside the house, she was two different people. The life she wanted was with her lover, but back then you didn't get in the family knew I was my father's preferred daughter. My sisters accepted it because they could see how alike we were. Bruno Troublé, my funny, interesting brother, was known as 'le ravissant' – 'the ravishing' – by my mother. He was her favourite. When I left my first marriage to Christian Bourgois, aged 20, I had no money. He paid my rent; the rest I had to manage. I sold my wedding jewellery and some furniture so I could feed our two children. Christian was an important literary publisher, but not a great husband. I kept the 'B' for my surname, girls are always in danger. I broke my leg when I was 12 and had to stay at home for a month. My uncle came to see me every night and abused me. He was a great man, with three children, but he loved me too much. It inspired my film, My Name Is Hmmm, about a girl who was abused by her first Agnès B store in Paris was full of birds. We had two in a cage, then opened the door once they had babies. They added stray threads from the clothes to their nests and were very happy. In the end we had 35 birds, flying around to the sounds of Bob Marley and Roxy Music on the Bowie wore an awful brown pleated suit when I saw him in concert. I sent him a pair of black leather jeans with a note in the pocket that said 'You should stick to a rock 'n' roll style.' He bought more pieces from me, then I dressed him for 25 years including his 50th birthday at Madison Square Garden. I love artists. In 1984 I opened my own gallery; many of my friends are artists and photographers. When I'm in London I visit Gilbert and George at their house in Fournier Street in Spitalfields and Jay Jopling from the White Cube. Tracey Emin and Martin Parr, I adore. For me, there's a natural connection between art and designing clothes. I hate fashion. It's not interesting. I've never looked at what other designers are doing, I don't go to shows, I don't go shopping. I have no time for it. We never advertised Agnès B; advertising makes people silly. I still have my communist vision from the Bergé [co-founder of Yves Saint Laurent] and I lay down in the middle of Rue de Rivoli to raise awareness of the Aids epidemic. We lost friends to the disease; it was a terrible time. Still now, we have a bowl of condoms in our shops. People help themselves without buying anything, but that's are good, but I'm not nostalgic. At 83, I don't feel older than I did 10 years ago. I have interesting people around me: grandchildren and great-grandchildren, musicians, models, colleagues who keep me young. I'm never bored. The new fragrance from Agnès B launches this autumn. Visit
