Antony Gormley

ANTONY GORMLEY AT THE HAYWARD: LONDON’S SKYLINE TRANSFORMED

The Hayward Gallery, as part of the relaunch season of Southbank Centre, will host one of the most exciting and ambitious exhibitions of recent years, presenting the first major London showing of the work of Antony Gormley, running from 17 May to 19 August 2007.

The exhibition, sponsored by Eversheds LLP, will feature a series of brand new monumental works specially conceived for the Hayward Gallery’s distinctive spaces, which move Gormley’s work in a radical new direction. It will include one of the largest ever urban public art commissions, Event Horizon, which will feature sculptural casts of the artist’s body on rooftops and public walkways across central London, dramatically transforming the city skyline.

Awarded the Turner Prize in 1994 and the South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999, Antony Gormley is one of the most celebrated artists working in the UK today. Since the 1980s his work has focused consistently on the human figure, using his own body as the starting point, material, tool and subject. For this exhibition, Gormley is creating a series of newly commissioned works which address fundamental questions of the body and space, appearance and disappearance, transformation and transcendence. These new works, including a spectacular series of suspended figures created in lightinfused webs of steel, will be shown alongside pieces from the last three decades. Chosen by Hayward Gallery Director, Ralph Rugoff and Curator, Jacky Klein, in consultation with the artist, the selection includes Mother’s Pride (1982), Allotment II (1996) and Drawn (2000).

Event Horizon is one of London’s most ambitious public art commissions. Viewed from the vantage point of the Hayward, the works are spread over a 1.5 sq km area, with some figures clearly visible and others sensed only as presences on the horizon. From daily commuters to tourists visiting London for the first time, Event Horizon will encourage people to look afresh at the city and will explore the way people view and interact with their everyday surroundings.

Antony Gormley’s association with the Hayward Gallery began more than ten years ago. His Field for the British Isles was shown in 1996 and became one of the most popular works ever shown at the gallery. Part of the Arts Council Collection, Field has been touring the UK as part of the Hayward Touring programme and has now been seen by over two million people.

Ralph Rugoff, Hayward Gallery Director, said: “It is a privilege to be working with Antony Gormley on this major exhibition in which he explores entirely new ground. It also creates a new vision of the Hayward Gallery as a more exciting, artistcentric space, a springboard for commissioning visual arts across the whole of Southbank Centre site and beyond. “

A fully illustrated catalogue will be published by the Hayward Gallery to accompany the exhibition. Richly illustrated with newly commissioned photographs of Gormley’s work and including an extensive interview by Rugoff and Klein, and essays by prominent authors, W J T Mitchell, Anthony Vidler and Susan Stewart, it will offer fresh perspectives on the artist’s practice.

A major new book on Antony Gormley, the first major retrospective of his career, will be published by SteidlMACK in May.

Antony Gormley
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