ANTONY GORMLEY (B. 1950)

The ‘Small Blockworks’ are models for the 1.5 life-size‘Blockworks’ which attempt to give a strong intimation of thefeel of a body using the smallest number of compressed ironblocks. These either sit one on top of the other or side-by-side,whether the figure is standing or crouching. The vertical workscounter the stability of a column by cantilever. They attemptto equate instability of build with a mental state, translatinghaptic bodily sensation into ever more parlous tectonics.

Both the ‘Blockworks’ and ‘Small Blockworks’ use scale to act on the body-consciousness of the viewer. All of the works have an extended foot – the size of the foot is incorporated with the other blocks of the work to integrate a base into the language of the work.

Gormley states “..blockworks describe the space of thebody in stacked masses that question its stability. I use theconstruction language of the built world; pillars and lintels, toevoke the inner condition of the body, treating the body less asa thing than a place. There is a tension between a suggestedsymmetry and the actual articulation of a body, so that veryslight variations in the alignment of the blocks can be readempathetically as an indication of the total body feeling. Thesepieces attempt to treat the body as a condition; being, notdoing.”