Embody · Works by Antony Gormley

Carrying with him the belief that his job is to transform what exists in the outer world by uniting it with the world of sensation, imagination and faith, British sculptor Antony Gormley often employs his own body as a starting point. His fiberglass and lead sculptures, as well as works on paper, will be presented in Embody.

After the application of a thin plaster shell to his body, Gormley allows it to dry while he maintains the desired pose. The shell is then removed and reinforced with fiberglass, which is then covered in sheet lead with the soldering lines remaining evident. The completed figure exceeds life-size merely by its own thickness.

A recipient of Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize in 1994, Gormley is renowned for his sculptures of the human body, a theme he has been exploring since the early 1980s, most notably in Angel of the North, a public sculpture in the north of England. “For me, the body is the central theme in art, but of course, also in life,” the artist has said. “Without the body, there is nowhere for our consciousness to exist.”

After attending Trinity College in Cambridge, from 1968 to 1971, Antony Gormley studied at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, Goldsmiths College in London, and the Slade School of Art, University College London.