Anthony Gormley - Broken Column

Note: photo from different source than DK Eyewitness - Art

DK Eyewitness Companions - Art 2005
Robert Cumming
Text previously published in A.R.T: A no-nonsense guide to art and artists
Painting - Sculpture - Artists - Styles - Schools
www.dk.com

pg 468 Contemporary Art

Anthony Gormley
1950 - British
UK, India, Sri Lanka
Sculpture, installations
London, Tate Collection
$145,600 in 2004 - Quantum Cloud XIV (sculpture)

He is an artist of increasing stature who has never been afraid to go against the grain of fashion.
His characteristically (but not exclusively) life-size human figures have no specific features & are made of metal, visibly soldered together in static poses. The are casts of the artist's own body. He is wrapped in clingfilm, then clothe, then coated with wet plaster, which dries.
He is then cut out of the resulting mould, which is reassembled, & lead or other maetal is pressed into the void, or beaten to take his form, & the pieces are welded together.
Gormley studies Buddhism in India, & there can be little doubt that he is an artist trying to say something (in which he may or may not succeed) rather than to play to a market.
His 20-metre (65-ft) - high Angel of the North dominates the main A1 road on the approach to Tyneside.
Key Works: Bed, 1980-81 (London: Tate Collection)
Three Ways: Mould, Hole, and Passage 1981 (London: Tate Collection)
Untitled (Man Falling) 1985 (Private Collection)
Maquette for Leeds Brick Man 1986 (Leeds: City Art Gallery)

Photo insert: Angel of the North
Anthony Gromley, 1997-98, height 20 meters (65 ft), steel sculpture, Gateshead (UK)
The work has a poetic significance as a memorial to the area's now defunct coal mining industry.
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Side Note: Angel of the North, recreated in straw for a worthy cause...
in image Googling photos of the original found this Angel of the NW

Photo title on webpage: The Angel of the North West was a great success and supported Hope House.



www.snugburys.co.uk/sculpture.htm

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