Overview
Space Out continues the artist’s investigation of body and space, interrogating the body as place and architecture as the primary conditioner of our experience of space.
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is delighted to host an exhibition of sculptures, which are part of Expansion Field by Antony Gormley in the Space Out exhibition at the Halle in Salzburg. Space Out continues the artist’s investigation of body and space, interrogating the body as place and architecture as the primary conditioner of our experience of space.
Antony Gormley explains: "Expansion Field (2014) tests the relationship between what something feels like and its external appearance. Each work is the result of a moment becoming objectified in a frame, one that has no absolute dimension. Space Out is an attempt to sculpt space itself. Each work isolates a space which, while becoming visible, isolates a darkness that is invisible." Space Out makes apparent, in the manner of an identity parade, the distinctions between various body positions and the incremental expansions of Expansion Field, inviting empathetic inhabitation.
The works are presented with a series of drawings that attempt to articulate, through flat fields of wash, the interrelationship of cells of space, related to both architecture and to the body – space that is both abstract and felt. In connection with the Second Body exhibition, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac published a catalogue with texts by American choreographer William Forsythe, art historian Guitemie Maldonado and a conversation between Antony Gormley and Hans Ulrich Obrist, discussing the installation Expansion Field.
Antony Gormley was born in London in 1950. His work has been widely exhibited throughout the UK and internationally with exhibitions at Forte di Belvedere, Florence (2015); Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2014); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia (2012); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2012); State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2010); Hayward Gallery, London (2007); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (1993), and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (1989). He has also participated in major group shows such as the Venice Biennale (1982 and 1986) and documenta 8, Kassel, Germany (1987). Permanent public works include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England), Another Place (Crosby Beach, England), Inside Australia (Lake Ballard, Western Australia) and Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands).
Gormley was awarded the 1994 Turner Prize, the 1999 South Bank Prize for Visual Art, the 2007 Bernhard Heiliger Award for Sculpture, the 2012 Obayashi Prize and the 2013 Praemium Imperiale. In 1997 he was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) and he was knighted in the 2014 New Year’s Honours list.
