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拍品专文
Executed in 2002, Before stems from Antony Gormley’s series of ‘double bodycase’ works. It comprises two conjoined iron figures, each cast from the artist’s own body. One stands behind the other, both facing forwards: at the feet the figures appear to merge into one, slowly diverging from one another before fully parting at the torso. ‘Within the body there is a doubling of many of the organs: two sides of the brain, two eyeballs, two ears, two lungs, two testicles, two kidneys, two hands, two legs,’ explains Gormley. ‘I wanted to make single sculptures that extend this mirroring to two complete bodies conjoined’ (A. Gormley, artist’s website). Before is closely related to the 2002 sculpture Break, and works from both editions have been shown together at the Villa Kast, Salzburg and the New Art Centre, East Winterslow. Other examples of the double bodycase works reside in the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and the Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon.
Gormley began his double bodycase works in 1987. Two of the earliest works from the series formed part of his presentation at documenta 8 in Kassel that year. In Growth, two conjoined bodies faced each other, their legs fused together; its companion work, To the Ends of the Earth, presented two bodies back to back, each facing outwards into the world. Before has its origins in these sculptures, which play with notions of self-definition and otherness. By doubling the body, Gormley seeks to explore not only the mirroring that exists in its internal make-up, but also the way in which our encounters with the outside world externalise our sense of self. ‘Of course, Gormley’s work has always been marked by the singular object’s encounter with the other,’ writes Andrew Renton. ‘… It is often a strategic encounter with what Samuel Beckett terms its “own other”—a figment or construction of itself’ (A. Renton, ‘Everything Matters: Antony Gormley’s Ethics of Materiality’, in Antony Gormley: Making Space, exh. cat. Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead 2003, p. 99).
In staging a reckoning with oneself, Before also dramatises the relationship between Gormley’s artworks and his viewers. His sculptures are intended to make us stop, reflect and think about the way that we inhabit space: in confronting his works, we are invited to look inwards and confront ourselves. As part of this process, Gormley offers himself up as a model. His works are not self-portraits, but rather use his own form as a universal example of human experience. The artist had first experimented with full body casting during the 1980s: an intimate technique which required him to stand completely still while being wrapped in clingfilm and plaster-soaked scrim. As it hardened, the plaster formed an indexical record of the artist’s body, which was then cast in iron. In the present work, Gormley gives form to this dynamic, the figures emerging organically from one another. It is a portrait of the way in which we ‘image’ ourselves, evaluating and re-evaluating our own experience as we see it reflected before us.
Gormley began his double bodycase works in 1987. Two of the earliest works from the series formed part of his presentation at documenta 8 in Kassel that year. In Growth, two conjoined bodies faced each other, their legs fused together; its companion work, To the Ends of the Earth, presented two bodies back to back, each facing outwards into the world. Before has its origins in these sculptures, which play with notions of self-definition and otherness. By doubling the body, Gormley seeks to explore not only the mirroring that exists in its internal make-up, but also the way in which our encounters with the outside world externalise our sense of self. ‘Of course, Gormley’s work has always been marked by the singular object’s encounter with the other,’ writes Andrew Renton. ‘… It is often a strategic encounter with what Samuel Beckett terms its “own other”—a figment or construction of itself’ (A. Renton, ‘Everything Matters: Antony Gormley’s Ethics of Materiality’, in Antony Gormley: Making Space, exh. cat. Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead 2003, p. 99).
In staging a reckoning with oneself, Before also dramatises the relationship between Gormley’s artworks and his viewers. His sculptures are intended to make us stop, reflect and think about the way that we inhabit space: in confronting his works, we are invited to look inwards and confront ourselves. As part of this process, Gormley offers himself up as a model. His works are not self-portraits, but rather use his own form as a universal example of human experience. The artist had first experimented with full body casting during the 1980s: an intimate technique which required him to stand completely still while being wrapped in clingfilm and plaster-soaked scrim. As it hardened, the plaster formed an indexical record of the artist’s body, which was then cast in iron. In the present work, Gormley gives form to this dynamic, the figures emerging organically from one another. It is a portrait of the way in which we ‘image’ ourselves, evaluating and re-evaluating our own experience as we see it reflected before us.