Antony Gormley

Kunsthaus Bregenz presents four major installations made by the artist Antony Gormley over the last 15 years in which we can trace a constant dialogue with the nature and dynamic of the sculptural project, the way that it investigates and occupies space, and the way that it invites us to re-orient ourselves, our perceptions and the terms of our self-knowledge. The exhibition brings together four key series from Gormley's oeuvre. Allotment and Critical Mass approach the collective body in dialectically different ways: body-forms falling or dropped, forming a chaotic and abject field, and void concrete cases arranged in a strict city grid. In contrast to these opposed masses and spaces Clearing creates a dynamic field: a drawing that acts like a web or nest to entrap and entrance the viewer, confusing and contradicting the clearly defined volumes of Peter Zumthor's architecture while remaining open to atmospheric changes of light. This sensation is contrasted by the results of a contained explosion where the physical meets the incommensurable in the seven tonnes of rusting iron that make up Body and Fruit. The essays are written by the well-known neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, who interprets the artist's work from the perspective of awareness research, the philosopher Marcus Steinweg, who examines the sculptures from an epistemological standpoint, and Yilmaz Dziewior, who explores Gormley's work from an art historical point of view. Published on the occasion of the exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz, July ndash; October 2009.