Antony Gormley: In Formation


Wonderful exhibition at White Cube Masons’ Yard of new work by Antony Gormley.

The upstairs gallery had four large figures. The component blocks are loose and use their weight as the principle of construction. They look very solid and permanent but knowing this made you realise they were more fragile.  Some of them faced the wall and leaned against it and I wanted to go up and comfort them.

The downstairs gallery had smaller, rust coloured figures. Called “Aggregates” evidently they are made of aggregated blocks which treat use the language of coding to suggest “struggle and symbiosis between body and black”. I’m not sure I’d have got that on my own but I liked them anyway. At  times the figures seem to be emerging from the blocks and the commentary did liken them to Michelangelo’s slave figures. I loved watching people walk around them and interact with them.

The works were surrounded by interesting drawings from five series but the commentary offered no explanation of them. They looked like explosions and seemed to have no link to the sculpture but it would have been nice to know a bit more about them.

Closes 18 January 2020

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