Antony Gormley


Fabulous exhibition at the Royal Academy of work by Antony Gormley.

I had expected this to be a retrospective but, although there was older work, there were lots of new pieces for this space or reworked for the space. I don’t want to say too much about the show because so much of it took me by surprise and I don’t want to spoil that for you.

Of course there were Ormskirk like figures as shown here. In this case they appeared from all directions in a room and you walked among them so they became part of the crowd. I find Gormley’s ideas so simple and effective that you wonder why no-one has done there before.

It was lovely to have a room of sketch books arranged roughly chronologically. They capture ideas and moments in his day. It’s amusing to see the quality of the books improve over the years as he becomes more successful.

I found this show had a humanising effect on people. From it feeling quite busy when you first go in the crowd spreads out. I loved the little brochure which gave you good commentaries on the work and avoided grouping round labels. This also seemed to enable people to talk, smile and offer to talk photos for each other. They were talking to the gallery assistants who seemed to be enjoying talking about the work and being with it for longer periods of time.

Closes 3 December 2019

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