From “Domain Field,” a show by Antony Gormley at Moscow’s Garage
Through September 2, Moscow’s Garage is hosting 287 sculptures by Antony Gormley. Corresponding with “One & Other,” a vastly different show by which participants took over the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square, Gormley presents works molded after the human form. “Domain Field” was first shown in 2003, at the UK’s Baltic Art Centre, which commissioned it.
Related links:
Garage Center for Contemporary Culture: Domain Field
Antony Gormley [artist homepage]
One & Other on The Fourth Plinth by Antony Gormley [Art Observed]
From “Domain Field,” a show by Antony Gormley at Moscow’s Garage. Via The Art Newspaper.
Each piece in “Domain Field” is constructed of steel bars, based on plaster molds that staff took of volunteers. 200 molds were cast, of volunteers aged two to 85 from Newcastle and Gateshead. Gormley is fascinated by living art, as evidenced by this year’s “One & Other,” a piece entirely living, by which participants do anything and everything at all in Trafalgar Square. “Domain Field” is no different; says the artist, “The work needs to be inhabited by the living bodies of the viewers. It is their motion through the piece that made the work.” The steel medium also achieves a certain tension: the meticulous construction it requires addresses questions concerning the space and volume of the human body, wherein the steel relies on the body’s center of gravity. Gormley’s rule, here, was “to use the least amount of material necessary to convey the attitude of the body (while still allowing it to stand)…. I [Gormley] see the Domain as a diagnostic instrument, both receiver and transmitter.”
Antony Gormley’s “Domain I.” Courtesy of the artist.
Antony Gormley’s “Domain VIII Crouching,” courtesy of the artist.
Antony Gormley’s “Domain XI,” courtesy of the artist.
Antony Gormley’s “Domain XXXII (Susanne Hargreaves,” courtesy of the artist.
Antony Gormley’s “Domain XXXVIII (Brendan Toole),” courtesy of the artist.
Born in London in 1950, Antony Gormley has had solo shows in London’s White Cube, Hayward, Serpentine and Whitechapel galleries; Tate St. Ives; the British Museum; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; New York’s Museum of Modern Art; DC’s Corcoran Gallery of Art; Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Spain; and more. He continues to explore and reinvent the human body, as “Domain Field” deconstructs the space which it inhabits.
The making of “Domain Field” (moldings). Courtesy of the artist, Antony Gormley.
The making of “Domain Field” (welding). Courtesy of the artist, Antony Gormley.
The steel used to make the figures in “Domain Field.” Courtesy of the artist, Antony Gormley.
– R. Fogel
