For anyone who didn't get to see this artist talk, I'm sorry! The work this sculptor does is truly inspiring to artists and "non" artists alike. His figurative sculptures can be found all over the world. My favorite is "Exposure." Gormley's largest work, standing (or squatting rather) at 25 meters high and weighing in at 60 tons this enormous figure is permanently sited 1km from the shore of Leystad, The Netherlands. It is made from 5,000 material elements and took over three years to design and build. Gormley describes this peice as "an attempt to evoke the body as a place." You have no idea of the scale of the man until you see a person standing next to it. The massive sculpture is considered a drawing in space as opposed to the more familiar solid structure seen in most of his other designs. Gormley uses his own body for almost all of his work, taking molds directly. In gallery settings, he places the figures in a way that forces the viewer to question what defines space. He spoke about the contemporary artists obsession with museums and believes that work should be made public whenever possible. He does have gallery work but prefers to create sculptures in spaces available for everyday foot traffic. Gormley was a funny, unique guy who pays attention to every detail of his work. One installation he has in some remote lake is casts of his body made from a mix of each element found in that location. Another amazing "social experiment" was created when he put 50 tons of clay in a huge, tempurature controlled tent, and brought people in to do whatever they wanted with the material. Each person was required to spend at least 4 hours in the tent, and Gormley had an EMT and psychiatrists present for safety. He described some people sitting on the floor and bawling without knowing why. Most people today are not given the opportunity to create without boundaries. The intense regression to childhood some people experienced was completely overwhelming. The end product was a huge mass of individual sculptures made into some kind of colony within the tent.
All of these works inspired me to challenge boundaries of the size, location, and material of my work.
No comments:
Post a Comment