Antony Gormley at the Bukhara Biennial The Best Public Art of 2025
This year’s standout public artworks brought civic imagination into parks, mountains, tunnels, and rooftops. From interactive sculptures to ecologically attuned installations, artists around the world are expanding the role of public art as a catalyst for reflection, play, and connection. The art and design fabrication company UAP has revealed its annual list of the most notable public art projects of 2025, curated in partnership with six internationally recognized curators.
Antony Gormley
Close (2025)
Bukhara, Uzbekistan
The inaugural Bukhara Biennial, “Recipes for a Broken Heart,” curated by Diana Campbell, activates the historical UNESCO heritage city, once the heart of the Silk Road. Antony Gormley’s Close (2025), a collaboration with Uzbekistani artist Temur Jumaev and local brickmakers, is one of the biennial’s most ambitious site-specific commissions. Situated within the ruins of the Khoja Kalon mosque built in 1598, the work comprises 95 tons of unfired sun-dried earth and straw. The bricks were hand-made to form “pixelated” bodies, employing the same vernacular techniques of how buildings in the city were made. Visitors navigate the maze-like installation, encountering 100 sculptures in crouching, reclining, or meditating postures, compelling a close proximity and bodily engagement. Absorbing its heritage context, the artwork appears to transform throughout the day with the play of light and shadow. It extends Gormley’s longstanding exploration of material physicality, the way parts come together as a whole, and his interests in human history, while addressing the idea of the body as a dwelling.
The experience is universal, appealing to audiences of all ages. It truly achieves what public art in a biennale setting is supposed to do, and not only connecting with the art crowds, but truly engaging with the site. It prompts visitors, whether local or international, to reconnect with their roots and question how one coexists, belongs, and takes part in history.
—Pojai Akratanakul
