.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
‘All of the Blockworks attempt to treat the body as a condition; being—not doing’ (Antony Gormley)
Included in Antony Gormley’s solo exhibition Blind Light at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 2007, Lie (Habitat) (2005) stems from his celebrated series of Blockworks. Begun in 2003, these works reimagine the human form through the interplay of different sized blocks. Drawing upon the languages of architecture and pixelation, the Blockworks explore the tension between sculptural mass and space. While all depict the body in a state of rest, the blocks are animated by the play of light through the contours of the figure. The friction between these voids and the steel forms produces a sense of internal dynamism—‘they are all evocations of the inside of the body under the skin’, Gormley explains (A. Gormley, artist’s website). As with all his works, Lie (Habitat) does not simply depict the human form: rather, it captures the feeling of existing within it.
Gormley explains that his works are ‘resonators for human experience’. They demand the interaction of the viewer, who projects his or her own sense of self onto the physical framework of his sculptures. ‘You could say that each of them displaces a space where someone could really stand’, he claims. ‘This acknowledgement of the absent is very important and is what needs to be filled by the subjectivity of the viewer’ (A. Gormley, interview with D. Ozerkov in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg 2011, p. 59). Despite their angular, abstract geometries, the Blockworks depict states we all recognise: they slump, slouch and recline, by turns agitated and at rest. The present work’s pose is particularly distinctive within the series, its figure reclined on its side and backed against the wall.
Gormley believes that, throughout its long history, Western sculpture has fixated on depicting the human body in movement. In doing so, it has ignored the motion and energy that exists within it. In the Blockworks, he explains, ‘the challenge is to try to liberate each of the participant blocks into a space of its own, where the dynamic between space and mass permeates the whole body’. He attempts to build tension between ‘cohesion’ and ‘expansion (or perhaps breakdown)’: the blocks seem to bloom outwards from the centre of the sculpture, straining to break away from one another but ultimately bound together. ‘Light and space eat into the embodied core, so the works have a quality of incomplete resolution’, he explains (A. Gormley, artist’s website). The present work simmers with this very friction: for all its stillness, it is unmistakably alive.
Included in Antony Gormley’s solo exhibition Blind Light at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 2007, Lie (Habitat) (2005) stems from his celebrated series of Blockworks. Begun in 2003, these works reimagine the human form through the interplay of different sized blocks. Drawing upon the languages of architecture and pixelation, the Blockworks explore the tension between sculptural mass and space. While all depict the body in a state of rest, the blocks are animated by the play of light through the contours of the figure. The friction between these voids and the steel forms produces a sense of internal dynamism—‘they are all evocations of the inside of the body under the skin’, Gormley explains (A. Gormley, artist’s website). As with all his works, Lie (Habitat) does not simply depict the human form: rather, it captures the feeling of existing within it.
Gormley explains that his works are ‘resonators for human experience’. They demand the interaction of the viewer, who projects his or her own sense of self onto the physical framework of his sculptures. ‘You could say that each of them displaces a space where someone could really stand’, he claims. ‘This acknowledgement of the absent is very important and is what needs to be filled by the subjectivity of the viewer’ (A. Gormley, interview with D. Ozerkov in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg 2011, p. 59). Despite their angular, abstract geometries, the Blockworks depict states we all recognise: they slump, slouch and recline, by turns agitated and at rest. The present work’s pose is particularly distinctive within the series, its figure reclined on its side and backed against the wall.
Gormley believes that, throughout its long history, Western sculpture has fixated on depicting the human body in movement. In doing so, it has ignored the motion and energy that exists within it. In the Blockworks, he explains, ‘the challenge is to try to liberate each of the participant blocks into a space of its own, where the dynamic between space and mass permeates the whole body’. He attempts to build tension between ‘cohesion’ and ‘expansion (or perhaps breakdown)’: the blocks seem to bloom outwards from the centre of the sculpture, straining to break away from one another but ultimately bound together. ‘Light and space eat into the embodied core, so the works have a quality of incomplete resolution’, he explains (A. Gormley, artist’s website). The present work simmers with this very friction: for all its stillness, it is unmistakably alive.