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From the age of six, it was a household rule | 0:00:40 | 0:00:44 | |
that after lunch you had to go upstairs and have a rest. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:48 | |
I would have to go to this room, | 0:00:50 | 0:00:51 | |
and the sun came pouring in there | 0:00:51 | 0:00:53 | |
and it was very, very warm. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:55 | |
And I would have to lie on this single bed, | 0:00:55 | 0:00:58 | |
not moving, with my eyes closed. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:01 | |
I would be in this highly... | 0:01:03 | 0:01:06 | |
so claustrophobic, red-hot space, | 0:01:06 | 0:01:09 | |
held in this tiny prison behind my eyes. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
After a while, I got to grips with this space | 0:01:17 | 0:01:21 | |
and I learned how to dwell in it, | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
and this tight, claustrophobic, | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
oppressive, hot space | 0:01:27 | 0:01:31 | |
would become darker and cooler and bigger... | 0:01:31 | 0:01:36 | |
..until I was highly conscious | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
but floating in this infinite, deep, blue, dark infinity. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:50 | |
Antony Gormley is a sculptor. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:56 | |
For more than 40 years, his work has dealt with what it feels like | 0:01:58 | 0:02:03 | |
to inhabit a human body. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:05 | |
In tonight's Imagine... | 0:02:18 | 0:02:20 | |
we follow Antony Gormley through an extraordinary year, | 0:02:20 | 0:02:23 | |
as he grapples with past work... | 0:02:23 | 0:02:25 | |
Yes! Yes! | 0:02:25 | 0:02:27 | |
..and experiments with a new visual language. | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
I REALLY believe this - | 0:02:36 | 0:02:39 | |
that sculpture, in its crude materiality | 0:02:39 | 0:02:43 | |
can touch us | 0:02:43 | 0:02:46 | |
and liberate feelings that we wouldn't know that we had. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:49 | |
LOUD CLANG | 0:02:52 | 0:02:53 | |
In the late '70s, Gormley made a series of works | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
wrapping found objects in lead. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:12 | |
As the process evolved, | 0:03:17 | 0:03:18 | |
he set aside these other things | 0:03:18 | 0:03:21 | |
and began to make casts from his own body. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:24 | |
I am that object. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:34 | |
And that seems to me an enormous advantage. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
It is so simple, really. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:41 | |
I mean, you cannot ever be inside another substance | 0:03:41 | 0:03:45 | |
as you are inside your own body. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
I am simply here | 0:04:05 | 0:04:07 | |
using my own existence, | 0:04:07 | 0:04:09 | |
my own body, | 0:04:09 | 0:04:11 | |
as the model. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:13 | |
The subject, | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
the tool and the instrument. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:18 | |
But I'm not making pictures of it. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:21 | |
My work is about what it means to inhabit a human life. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:30 | |
When we close our eyes, we are in a space that has no edges, | 0:04:32 | 0:04:36 | |
that has no dimension, | 0:04:36 | 0:04:38 | |
that is immeasurable, | 0:04:38 | 0:04:40 | |
and is equivalent to the deep space of the cosmos. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:44 | |
CRACKLE OF ELECTRICITY | 0:04:44 | 0:04:46 | |
Gormley's work has evolved | 0:05:07 | 0:05:09 | |
to incorporate experimental techniques and materials. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:13 | |
But the primary source continues to be his own body. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:19 | |
Instead of plaster casts, Gormley now uses an infrared scanner. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:36 | |
Bespoke computer software allows him | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
to push the original shape further and further into abstraction. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:55 | |
Today I am joining Antony and his studio team | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
as they travel to see an exhibition | 0:06:28 | 0:06:31 | |
of his most recent work newly installed in Paris. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
These last few years have been enormously productive. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:42 | |
Gormley now employs a team of assistants | 0:06:42 | 0:06:45 | |
working across two studios in London and in the north-east. | 0:06:45 | 0:06:49 | |
All of the work in the exhibition Second Body | 0:07:00 | 0:07:03 | |
has been produced in the last two years. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:05 | |
While some of the work may appear abstract, | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
its point of reference is always the human body. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
In the 1st century BC, the Roman architect Vitruvius | 0:07:48 | 0:07:53 | |
defined the proportions of the ideal human body | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
in what came to be known as Vitruvian man. | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
Vitruvius says the head has to go into the body eight times. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:04 | |
That between the chin and the hairline is one hand's breadth. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:09 | |
One hand's breadth is exactly this. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
This is putting space itself as the subject. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
In the next room, a series of small ink drawings share a common idea | 0:08:22 | 0:08:27 | |
with the enormous steel structures of the room beyond. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:31 | |
These are funny drawings in a way, | 0:08:50 | 0:08:51 | |
because they demand a certain precision. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:55 | |
And they have to have a certain geometric accuracy. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:04 | |
So that you... | 0:09:05 | 0:09:07 | |
..you believe in the volumes. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:12 | |
I'm just thinking about the darkness that you can't see | 0:09:16 | 0:09:19 | |
inside those big cases. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:22 | |
I suppose I'm trying to evoke both how it's constructed... | 0:09:30 | 0:09:34 | |
..but, perhaps, also what it might feel like. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
What these drawings are about is acknowledging the fact | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
that we have a direct apprehension of the darkness of the body. | 0:09:57 | 0:10:02 | |
What is that space that we inhabit when we close our eyes... | 0:10:05 | 0:10:10 | |
that is without dimension... | 0:10:10 | 0:10:13 | |
..without bounding condition... | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
..that seemingly allows us infinite extension? | 0:10:18 | 0:10:23 | |
LOUD CLANG | 0:10:27 | 0:10:29 | |
Antony Gormley was born in London in 1950, | 0:10:34 | 0:10:37 | |
the youngest of seven children. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:39 | |
His parents were devout Catholics. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
We were christened with the initials AMDG - | 0:10:42 | 0:10:46 | |
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam - | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
for the greater glory of God. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:51 | |
My name is Antony Mark David Gormley, | 0:10:51 | 0:10:53 | |
but they knew what they were doing. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:55 | |
So it was an inference not a, as it were... | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
-HE LAUGHS -..dedication. | 0:10:58 | 0:11:00 | |
That was a big weight to stick around my neck. | 0:11:00 | 0:11:04 | |
Hey. Yeah. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:05 | |
Great expectations! | 0:11:05 | 0:11:08 | |
Then I went on to school | 0:11:08 | 0:11:09 | |
and, actually, you had to write that the top of your prep. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:13 | |
And in a Catholic school, no-one was in any doubt what that meant? | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
No. No. Absolutely not. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam was just, you know, one of those... | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
You know, you breathed it, really. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:23 | |
After prep school, | 0:11:27 | 0:11:28 | |
Gormley was sent to board at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire | 0:11:28 | 0:11:32 | |
where he was taught by Benedictine monks. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:35 | |
Did you feel uncomfortable there, or did you somehow...? | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
No, I... I... I bought it all - hook, line and sinker. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
Because that was the only world I knew. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
And it was...absolutist. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:48 | |
Your father actually organised pilgrimages to Lourdes, | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
and you went there yourself as a volunteer. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:05 | |
Aged 17, I hitchhiked down to Lourdes, shrine of Bernadette | 0:12:05 | 0:12:10 | |
and Our Lady of Lourdes, | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
place of miracles. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:15 | |
Erm... | 0:12:15 | 0:12:17 | |
where I worked as a brancardier for... | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
probably two and a half weeks... | 0:12:20 | 0:12:23 | |
..carrying the sick, | 0:12:26 | 0:12:28 | |
working in the shrine, | 0:12:28 | 0:12:30 | |
undressing paraplegics, | 0:12:30 | 0:12:31 | |
putting them into rubber harnesses | 0:12:31 | 0:12:35 | |
and dipping them with full-body immersion | 0:12:35 | 0:12:39 | |
into the ice-cold water of the spring. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
HE EXHALES HEAVILY | 0:12:47 | 0:12:48 | |
You know... | 0:12:48 | 0:12:50 | |
I mean, real, real suffering, | 0:12:50 | 0:12:52 | |
and the illusion and delusion | 0:12:52 | 0:12:56 | |
of the expected miracles. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:59 | |
It just makes you very angry, I'm afraid. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:05 | |
Well, I mean, thinking about it now, it's just like this... | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
..collective hallucination. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:13 | |
I think that sculpture inevitably talks about the big unknown, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:27 | |
of what lies on the other side of the horizon of life. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:32 | |
So, death. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:33 | |
The sculpture deals with death head-on. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:43 | |
We are born into the world alone | 0:13:51 | 0:13:54 | |
and we leave it alone and, in the end, | 0:13:54 | 0:13:56 | |
we don't know what the next stage - | 0:13:56 | 0:14:00 | |
having had a precious human life - is. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
I think the truth is that... | 0:14:08 | 0:14:10 | |
And this is what every Catholic will say, | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
if you were brought up a Catholic | 0:14:13 | 0:14:15 | |
you may lose your Catholicism, | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
but the fact is it has marked you for life. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
And the absolute need to replace its belief system | 0:14:23 | 0:14:29 | |
with something else | 0:14:29 | 0:14:31 | |
becomes your life's work. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:33 | |
This is Antony Gormley in India at the age of 23. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:42 | |
The Catholic faith that had dominated his childhood was gone. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
In 1968, he went to Cambridge | 0:14:47 | 0:14:49 | |
to study archaeology, anthropology and art history. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:52 | |
I became aware of, as it were, the alternatives. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
And right from the beginning, I wanted to experience | 0:14:56 | 0:15:00 | |
those alternatives. | 0:15:00 | 0:15:02 | |
After graduating, he set off on the hippie trail | 0:15:04 | 0:15:07 | |
travelling through Turkey, Syria and Afghanistan | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
until he found himself in India. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
India was the beginning of everything | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
in terms of making sense of my life, | 0:15:22 | 0:15:25 | |
and finding a means of doing so. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:29 | |
You stayed there in India for two years, | 0:15:30 | 0:15:32 | |
studying meditation with a Buddhist teacher. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:36 | |
I found that Vipassana meditation | 0:15:36 | 0:15:38 | |
took me back to a place I'd already known as a child. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:42 | |
All of the historical, factual learning that I had been given | 0:15:42 | 0:15:48 | |
as a result of a classical education fell away. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:52 | |
I thought, "This is a path | 0:15:52 | 0:15:54 | |
"I could follow to the end. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:56 | |
"I could try to achieve enlightenment." | 0:15:56 | 0:16:00 | |
And I think at that point, I realised that this was | 0:16:00 | 0:16:03 | |
in some senses an escape, | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
and that it would be better to try | 0:16:06 | 0:16:10 | |
to come back to my own culture, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
and...and bring into it whatever realisations I had had. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:19 | |
These experiences in India | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
had already planted the seed for his first sculpture. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:30 | |
I'm looking at Sleeping Place. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:34 | |
Where did that image come from? | 0:16:34 | 0:16:36 | |
At some point I had all my worldly goods removed. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
I mean, they were nicked, | 0:16:40 | 0:16:42 | |
and I lived on the streets of Calcutta | 0:16:42 | 0:16:46 | |
for about two weeks without any money. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:49 | |
All the world would be... I mean, the shouting! | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
"Chai! Chai! Chai! Chai!" | 0:16:53 | 0:16:55 | |
Kind of, you know, people with luggage and the rickshaws | 0:16:55 | 0:16:57 | |
and the tuk-tuks all going... | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
And there would be this silent, still, dhoti-covered body. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:06 | |
You wouldn't know whether it was dead or alive at first sight. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
The image of these... | 0:17:11 | 0:17:14 | |
..so vulnerable, and yet so pure shapes | 0:17:16 | 0:17:21 | |
that are a form of architecture. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:24 | |
Sleeping Place was a way | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
of just bringing that back, | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
..making that experience again as an object. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:39 | |
It talks about our need for shelter and security. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
It, in a way, also talks about what Plato said... | 0:17:45 | 0:17:49 | |
..that we will never know what is inside another person's mind, | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
that there is, as it were, an infinity of possibility | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
that lies on the other side of that skin. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:03 | |
Antony returned to England in 1974 | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
and enrolled in art college. | 0:18:08 | 0:18:11 | |
It was a time of great upheaval in British art. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:13 | |
Carl Andre's notorious bricks had caused an outcry | 0:18:15 | 0:18:19 | |
when they were bought by the Tate. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:21 | |
It's a pile of bricks! | 0:18:21 | 0:18:23 | |
Michelangelo said, I think, | 0:18:26 | 0:18:28 | |
"My sculptures consist in removing what is not the figure | 0:18:28 | 0:18:32 | |
"from the block of stone." | 0:18:32 | 0:18:34 | |
Erm... | 0:18:34 | 0:18:35 | |
perhaps I have just taken a block of stone and not removed anything. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
In 1978, as a postgraduate student, | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
Gormley saw an exhibition of Carl Andre's work | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
at London's Whitechapel Gallery. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:50 | |
The exhibition was curated by a dynamic young gallery director, | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
Nicholas Serota - | 0:18:56 | 0:18:58 | |
fast becoming one of the most influential figures in British art. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
Three years later, Serota gave Antony Gormley | 0:19:02 | 0:19:06 | |
the chance to use this same space | 0:19:06 | 0:19:08 | |
for his first solo show. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:11 | |
How did Antony present himself to you? How confident was he? | 0:19:11 | 0:19:14 | |
Did he know what he was doing? | 0:19:14 | 0:19:16 | |
What was he like? | 0:19:16 | 0:19:17 | |
He was someone who had proceeded actually quite slowly | 0:19:17 | 0:19:23 | |
through his 20s and into the early 30s, | 0:19:23 | 0:19:26 | |
gradually absorbing all these experiences of travelling in India, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:31 | |
of looking at sculpture, | 0:19:31 | 0:19:33 | |
of being at art school. | 0:19:33 | 0:19:35 | |
And slowly this force was growing within him | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
and within the space of a year or two, | 0:19:38 | 0:19:42 | |
he formed that body of work | 0:19:42 | 0:19:45 | |
we now recognise as being quintessentially Antony Gormley. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:49 | |
The centrepiece of that first exhibition is now on display | 0:19:49 | 0:19:53 | |
at Tate Britain. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:55 | |
It's made from 8,640 slices of Mother's Pride white bread. | 0:19:59 | 0:20:05 | |
I look at the bread and I think of the Bricks, | 0:20:07 | 0:20:10 | |
and I think of this sort of humanising of abstraction. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
It is one of the first pieces that uses his whole body. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:17 | |
Here, in a negative form, obviously, | 0:20:17 | 0:20:19 | |
but...he ate the bread. | 0:20:19 | 0:20:21 | |
Oh, that's right. Of course! | 0:20:21 | 0:20:23 | |
He ate the bread to create the form of his body. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
I mean, I think it was Antony's intention | 0:20:26 | 0:20:29 | |
that he should take the most basic form of bread | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
that was available in any supermarket. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
He coated each of these pieces in paraffin wax | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
in an attempt to preserve it, but, of course, | 0:20:37 | 0:20:40 | |
there's a certain amount of mould has grown. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
-I see what you mean about toothmarks and stuff. -Yes. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:45 | |
Unfortunately, for Anthony there were problems he hadn't foreseen. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:49 | |
Bed was the first work of mine | 0:20:51 | 0:20:54 | |
that was ever sold. | 0:20:54 | 0:20:57 | |
But on the day that they exposed it | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 | |
for the trustees to sign off the acquisition, | 0:21:00 | 0:21:02 | |
somebody noticed this movement on the surface, | 0:21:02 | 0:21:06 | |
and some conservator had | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
a close look at this | 0:21:09 | 0:21:10 | |
and declared that there was an infestation | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
of Indian bookworm, | 0:21:14 | 0:21:15 | |
and the source of the Indian bookworm was | 0:21:15 | 0:21:18 | |
my bed. | 0:21:18 | 0:21:20 | |
Which had become a breeding ground for these little creatures. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:23 | |
Anyway, it was immediately... | 0:21:23 | 0:21:25 | |
The room was isolated, | 0:21:25 | 0:21:27 | |
the work was de-acquisitioned and sent to Rentokil | 0:21:27 | 0:21:32 | |
where it spent - yeah - a lot of time | 0:21:32 | 0:21:36 | |
until all living life within it | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
had been extinguished. | 0:21:39 | 0:21:41 | |
Today, Gormley's bread bed | 0:21:44 | 0:21:46 | |
shares its space with works by Anish Kapoor and Richard Long. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
But in the next room hang works by someone | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
whose role in his creative life was much more significant. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
His wife, the artist Vicken Parsons. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:07 | |
She became a vital accomplice in the next stage of his work. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:26 | |
It's evidence of the necessary trust between two people. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:46 | |
We did total body encasement | 0:22:52 | 0:22:55 | |
which meant that you were essentially | 0:22:55 | 0:22:59 | |
bound, | 0:22:59 | 0:23:00 | |
gagged | 0:23:00 | 0:23:02 | |
and, er, imprisoned. | 0:23:02 | 0:23:04 | |
How are we going to get you out? | 0:23:06 | 0:23:08 | |
Along the gap between my thighs and my chest. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:12 | |
For the first 15 years, she was my primary assistant. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:17 | |
She did all of the body moulding, | 0:23:17 | 0:23:21 | |
and cut me out. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
And I've got scars to prove it. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:25 | |
But I think there are a lot of myths that somehow | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
art is made by, usually lone, men on their own, | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
who are slightly, perhaps, difficult. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:35 | |
I just feel so lucky | 0:23:43 | 0:23:45 | |
and so blessed, really, | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
that I have such a strong supporter | 0:23:48 | 0:23:52 | |
and lover | 0:23:52 | 0:23:54 | |
and fellow artist. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:56 | |
And over the next ten years, | 0:24:08 | 0:24:11 | |
you made more than 80 of those figures in lead. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
Lead is an extraordinary material. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:17 | |
It has this density, this opacity. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:19 | |
And then it has this extraordinary relationship with light | 0:24:24 | 0:24:28 | |
which is very like water. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:29 | |
It absorbs light, but also reflects it. | 0:24:29 | 0:24:32 | |
The common idea of alchemy | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
is that you can turn lead into gold. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
But that's actually just a metaphor | 0:24:45 | 0:24:48 | |
for turning gross matter into imagination, | 0:24:48 | 0:24:52 | |
which is what art should do. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:55 | |
Gormley's work didn't shy away from the political realities | 0:25:02 | 0:25:06 | |
of the time. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:08 | |
In 1987, he made a site-specific installation | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
that engaged directly with the conflict in Northern Ireland. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
He created three double-faced figures | 0:25:18 | 0:25:20 | |
to be positioned at key points along the city walls of Londonderry, | 0:25:20 | 0:25:25 | |
marking sites of division between the Protestant and Catholic communities. | 0:25:25 | 0:25:30 | |
The work was an attempt to use | 0:25:30 | 0:25:33 | |
the central image of Christianity - crucifixion - | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
by making these two body cases made out of ordinance quality steel - | 0:25:36 | 0:25:42 | |
in other words, capable of withstanding the impact | 0:25:42 | 0:25:46 | |
of high velocity bullets. | 0:25:46 | 0:25:48 | |
And if you put those two body cases together | 0:25:48 | 0:25:52 | |
you look through the open eyes of one | 0:25:52 | 0:25:56 | |
and out of the open eyes of the other. | 0:25:56 | 0:26:00 | |
And my idea was to find three points on these walls | 0:26:00 | 0:26:06 | |
that really made sense in terms of the tension | 0:26:06 | 0:26:09 | |
within that divided community. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:11 | |
As we installed the piece onto the Bogside site, | 0:26:16 | 0:26:20 | |
this crowd of youths came out the Bogside | 0:26:20 | 0:26:24 | |
and started yelling. | 0:26:24 | 0:26:25 | |
They started throwing stones. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
They were spitting at the sculpture | 0:26:27 | 0:26:30 | |
as it was delivered off the lorry. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:32 | |
It was hoisted up, literally dripping with spit | 0:26:32 | 0:26:35 | |
and these stones were coming across... | 0:26:35 | 0:26:40 | |
And before long all the windows of the crane had been smashed. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:44 | |
The crane driver had run for his life. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:47 | |
And at this point, | 0:26:47 | 0:26:49 | |
a guy who was part of the installation team | 0:26:49 | 0:26:52 | |
ran like...like the wind, | 0:26:52 | 0:26:56 | |
like Finn McCool - he had a hammer | 0:26:56 | 0:26:58 | |
and he was just going like this. | 0:26:58 | 0:27:00 | |
And they just all stopped in their tracks. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:03 | |
I mean, it was a very... | 0:27:03 | 0:27:05 | |
extraordinary moment. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:07 | |
That night, the piece on the Fountains Estate | 0:27:10 | 0:27:13 | |
was burnt to a cinder. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:15 | |
They'd put tyres around its neck | 0:27:15 | 0:27:16 | |
so, in the morning, there was just this incredible image | 0:27:16 | 0:27:20 | |
of this entirely burnt figure. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
With something that looked very like the crown of thorns, | 0:27:28 | 0:27:32 | |
but it was actually the wires from the inside of a tyre. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:35 | |
Here was this image of the central event of the Christian faith | 0:27:40 | 0:27:45 | |
that was equally relevant | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
to both communities | 0:27:48 | 0:27:50 | |
being used to objectify this extraordinary conflict. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:56 | |
At the end of the '80s, Gormley began a series of works | 0:28:06 | 0:28:10 | |
that led him to represent human experience in a totally new way. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:15 | |
This is really the first work in which | 0:28:17 | 0:28:19 | |
I did have collective participation. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:21 | |
And each time you've made Field, | 0:28:24 | 0:28:26 | |
you've used local people and local clay. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:28 | |
I just have to give them very simple instructions - | 0:28:28 | 0:28:33 | |
just take a ball of clay, form it in the hands, | 0:28:33 | 0:28:37 | |
place it apart from you, make it conscious, | 0:28:37 | 0:28:39 | |
give it eyes, | 0:28:39 | 0:28:41 | |
and now see how a form will arise. | 0:28:41 | 0:28:44 | |
And it will be YOUR form. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:46 | |
It will be unique to you. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:48 | |
What gets released when you give a common collective aim | 0:28:49 | 0:28:54 | |
to a group of people... | 0:28:54 | 0:28:57 | |
It is absolutely astonishing what happens. | 0:28:57 | 0:29:00 | |
It's magic. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:03 | |
The first time he made Field, there were 1,000 figures. | 0:29:05 | 0:29:08 | |
By the time he made Field for the British Isles in 1993, | 0:29:09 | 0:29:14 | |
the clay army stood 40,000 strong. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:17 | |
The single figure is one thing, | 0:29:31 | 0:29:33 | |
but it's the communal figure, the way it fills that space | 0:29:33 | 0:29:36 | |
which is so overwhelming, you know. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:38 | |
It's about, in a sense, | 0:29:38 | 0:29:40 | |
our right to a voice. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:43 | |
It is about giving a physical sense to those without a voice. | 0:29:43 | 0:29:48 | |
These are witnesses that have no mouths | 0:29:48 | 0:29:51 | |
but look at us dumbly and judge us. | 0:29:51 | 0:29:55 | |
We, the living. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:56 | |
What kind of world are you bequeathing to your children? | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
To your children's children? | 0:29:59 | 0:30:01 | |
I grew up properly in the late '60s, | 0:30:03 | 0:30:06 | |
in the time of demonstrations. It was when sit-ins happened. | 0:30:06 | 0:30:09 | |
We occupied the positions of power. | 0:30:09 | 0:30:12 | |
And that's the point of Field. | 0:30:12 | 0:30:15 | |
Field completely occupies the space of a museum to the point | 0:30:15 | 0:30:19 | |
where you can't get in. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:20 | |
And instead of in some way you having this pleasurable | 0:30:21 | 0:30:26 | |
cultural experience, you are confronted by this accusatory gaze. | 0:30:26 | 0:30:30 | |
Welcome back to the Tate Gallery in London, live, | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
where we are about to hear | 0:30:46 | 0:30:48 | |
who has won this year's £20,000 Turner Award. | 0:30:48 | 0:30:51 | |
-Congratulations... -APPLAUSE | 0:30:51 | 0:30:54 | |
-..Mr Antony Gormley. -CHEERS AND APPLAUSE | 0:30:54 | 0:30:57 | |
It's quite interesting what happens to artists | 0:31:16 | 0:31:19 | |
when they win the Turner Prize. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:20 | |
Some sort of have actually sunk into relative oblivion. | 0:31:20 | 0:31:24 | |
For some, it just reinforces whatever status | 0:31:24 | 0:31:28 | |
they have at the time. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:29 | |
I think Antony is one of those people you can say retrospectively, | 0:31:29 | 0:31:33 | |
having won the Turner Prize, | 0:31:33 | 0:31:35 | |
it really did kick-start his transition. | 0:31:35 | 0:31:37 | |
In literal terms, | 0:31:42 | 0:31:43 | |
he was able to do something bigger than he'd ever done before. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:47 | |
The Angel Of The North is my attempt at a Stonehenge, isn't it? | 0:31:49 | 0:31:54 | |
It's the attempt at marking a very particular place | 0:31:54 | 0:31:58 | |
and a very particular time, between near the end of coal mining, | 0:31:58 | 0:32:02 | |
the end of shipbuilding, | 0:32:02 | 0:32:04 | |
the end of the industrial power of the north-east... | 0:32:04 | 0:32:08 | |
..and the dawn of the information age | 0:32:10 | 0:32:12 | |
and making a totemic object for a community that had lost, in a way... | 0:32:12 | 0:32:18 | |
lost faith in its own future. | 0:32:18 | 0:32:20 | |
To use the same materials and the same purposefulness | 0:32:23 | 0:32:27 | |
with which you might make a railway bridge or a large boat, | 0:32:27 | 0:32:31 | |
but use it to make an imaginative object. | 0:32:31 | 0:32:35 | |
The motif of the angel | 0:32:43 | 0:32:45 | |
had been present in Gormley's work for some time. | 0:32:45 | 0:32:48 | |
They appear as hybrid creatures, impeded by their heavy wings. | 0:32:50 | 0:32:55 | |
But he'd never attempted anything on this scale before. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:02 | |
Not only was it the largest sculpture Gormley had ever made... | 0:33:20 | 0:33:23 | |
..at the time of its construction, | 0:33:26 | 0:33:28 | |
it would be the largest sculpture in Britain. | 0:33:28 | 0:33:30 | |
I want my work to have a life. I want my work to interact with life. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:44 | |
I want my work to be part of life. | 0:33:44 | 0:33:46 | |
My hackles raise when that phrase is used - | 0:33:46 | 0:33:53 | |
"Oh, you make public art." | 0:33:53 | 0:33:56 | |
As if that was some kind of second rate compromised, | 0:33:56 | 0:34:01 | |
qualified, pure art. | 0:34:01 | 0:34:04 | |
I absolutely turn that on its head. | 0:34:04 | 0:34:07 | |
In my view, all great art was made to touch all people. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:16 | |
And the privatisation of art is some aberration. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:21 | |
I think the real proof of art's effectiveness is the degree | 0:34:25 | 0:34:32 | |
to which it can touch people. | 0:34:32 | 0:34:36 | |
Shift the tectonic plates of an assumption about the world... | 0:34:40 | 0:34:45 | |
..or open a valve in their emotional constitution that perhaps | 0:34:46 | 0:34:53 | |
hadn't been opened before. | 0:34:53 | 0:34:55 | |
Its position, just off the A1 near Gateshead, | 0:35:10 | 0:35:13 | |
would make it one of the most viewed pieces of art in the world, | 0:35:13 | 0:35:17 | |
seen by an estimated 90,000 people every day. | 0:35:17 | 0:35:21 | |
I was concerned - is it going to work as a piece of sculpture? | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
Are its proportions going to work on this scale? | 0:35:39 | 0:35:41 | |
Obviously, what one's most worried about is that it just looks | 0:35:41 | 0:35:44 | |
like a small thing that's been made ten times bigger. | 0:35:44 | 0:35:47 | |
But I think the great thing is that it looks like it needs to be | 0:35:47 | 0:35:50 | |
the size that it is and that it works in the context. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:53 | |
In other words, I mean... Well, I'm thrilled. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:56 | |
I mean, it's amazing to me that the Angel Of The North is rarely alone. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:15 | |
You see it always with the silhouettes of people moving | 0:36:15 | 0:36:21 | |
underneath the bottom edge of the wings. | 0:36:21 | 0:36:25 | |
It hadn't always been popular with the local community. | 0:36:26 | 0:36:29 | |
And then one day, an Alan Shearer shirt finds its way on to the work. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:39 | |
What was your feeling about that? | 0:36:39 | 0:36:42 | |
That was just baptism, my old Christian way... | 0:36:42 | 0:36:46 | |
I think that was it being accepted. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:48 | |
I can remember going to the Newcastle Brewery's charity evening | 0:36:48 | 0:36:54 | |
when I was trying to get the Angel made and being booed off the stage. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:58 | |
"Get off, you wanker!" It was an amazing sign of a change of heart. | 0:36:58 | 0:37:04 | |
CROWD ROARS | 0:37:04 | 0:37:08 | |
For Gormley, the placement of his work is hugely important. | 0:37:21 | 0:37:26 | |
Today, he's travelling to Lundy Island, 12 miles off the coast | 0:37:26 | 0:37:31 | |
of Devon, to oversee the installation of a new work for the Landmark Trust. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:36 | |
First time I've ever been here. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:41 | |
Well, it's... It's perfect. | 0:37:41 | 0:37:44 | |
And to be on a day... | 0:37:44 | 0:37:46 | |
here on a day like this where this extraordinary prospect, | 0:37:46 | 0:37:51 | |
where we look back on to Wales, back up the Bristol Channel | 0:37:51 | 0:37:56 | |
and then out, out, out west towards America... | 0:37:56 | 0:38:00 | |
-It's glorious! -Do you like it? -Yeah, I love it. It's just... | 0:38:23 | 0:38:27 | |
It's just fantastic. What a sight. | 0:38:27 | 0:38:31 | |
Aren't I lucky? I love the texture. This is just great! | 0:38:31 | 0:38:36 | |
I think it needs to twist about... About 90. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:45 | |
Up again. | 0:38:47 | 0:38:48 | |
That's it. OK. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:54 | |
That's better, that's better. | 0:38:57 | 0:38:59 | |
So, have we got a spirit level somewhere? | 0:38:59 | 0:39:01 | |
Congratulations. That's exactly what I did. | 0:39:06 | 0:39:10 | |
That is bloody... Bloody impressive. | 0:39:10 | 0:39:14 | |
Don't fall over here, that's all I ask. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:28 | |
It's a long way down. | 0:39:29 | 0:39:31 | |
This bit of headland has been here hundreds of thousands of years. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:43 | |
And now, it's got this... | 0:39:45 | 0:39:49 | |
..foreign object on it. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:52 | |
It's got to have that sense of it | 0:39:53 | 0:39:55 | |
being, in a way, | 0:39:55 | 0:39:58 | |
an irritation, but then at the same time | 0:39:58 | 0:40:03 | |
it's got to own its place. | 0:40:03 | 0:40:09 | |
The other test of a well-sited work is... | 0:40:13 | 0:40:19 | |
during the time that it's there, | 0:40:19 | 0:40:20 | |
you can't think of the place without the object | 0:40:20 | 0:40:23 | |
or the object without the place. | 0:40:23 | 0:40:25 | |
The emotional impact of the work transforms | 0:40:42 | 0:40:45 | |
the environment in unexpected ways... | 0:40:45 | 0:40:47 | |
..from the seashore to the city skyline. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:56 | |
Event Horizon happened in London in 2007 and this was just | 0:41:10 | 0:41:14 | |
a couple of years after the terrorist attacks in London. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:17 | |
But there was a real sense of, of fear and of a kind of quiet | 0:41:19 | 0:41:23 | |
sort of endless everyday fear, | 0:41:23 | 0:41:26 | |
of people take off a rucksack on a bus and put it down | 0:41:26 | 0:41:29 | |
and everyone is suddenly noticing it. | 0:41:29 | 0:41:31 | |
That piece spoke to all of that fear as well. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
Are these threatening? | 0:41:35 | 0:41:36 | |
Are they friendly? Are they alien creatures? | 0:41:36 | 0:41:39 | |
What are they? | 0:41:39 | 0:41:40 | |
And they were all facing back towards the Hayward building | 0:41:44 | 0:41:48 | |
which meant in a way that what Antony had done was | 0:41:48 | 0:41:50 | |
a kind of clever reversal, if you like, | 0:41:50 | 0:41:52 | |
of the typical relationship between the artwork and the viewer. | 0:41:52 | 0:41:56 | |
Blind Light was the name of the entire exhibition | 0:41:59 | 0:42:03 | |
but Blind Light was also the title of a work at the centre of a show. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:08 | |
The idea of Blind Light | 0:42:09 | 0:42:11 | |
was actually to make you into a disembodied intelligence. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:14 | |
You cross over this fully open threshold | 0:42:16 | 0:42:20 | |
and suddenly you are in space. | 0:42:20 | 0:42:24 | |
The light is substantial... | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
but shows you nothing. | 0:42:27 | 0:42:28 | |
Apart from itself and you are immersed in it. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:33 | |
You're no longer moving through space with determinism. | 0:42:35 | 0:42:39 | |
You are lost in space and light. | 0:42:39 | 0:42:41 | |
People would say to me, | 0:42:44 | 0:42:46 | |
"Oh, I now know what it's going to be like to be dead". | 0:42:46 | 0:42:49 | |
I'll just be like a thought in space. | 0:42:50 | 0:42:54 | |
But at that point, you also become an image to people outside. | 0:42:56 | 0:43:01 | |
But I like that idea, | 0:43:02 | 0:43:04 | |
particularly when people were pressing up against the glass. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:07 | |
It was almost as if they were calling in their gestures | 0:43:07 | 0:43:12 | |
for you to...to be there with them. | 0:43:12 | 0:43:17 | |
I think Blind Light was a jumping-off point | 0:43:19 | 0:43:22 | |
for many of the works that have come later based around rooms | 0:43:22 | 0:43:25 | |
and structures and journeys and paths through spaces. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:30 | |
I think also the engagement with the public | 0:43:34 | 0:43:37 | |
and the trust in the public to come to the work | 0:43:37 | 0:43:40 | |
and bring their own bodies and experiences to it | 0:43:40 | 0:43:43 | |
was revolutionised by that moment at the exhibition when it really | 0:43:43 | 0:43:47 | |
was a point where Antony moved further and further | 0:43:47 | 0:43:49 | |
away from the object in a space to our bodies as the objects | 0:43:49 | 0:43:54 | |
in the space. | 0:43:54 | 0:43:55 | |
These works begin and end with bodily experience. | 0:44:03 | 0:44:08 | |
They are often about a lived moment. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:11 | |
A space once occupied by a human body or a space into which | 0:44:11 | 0:44:14 | |
you then go as a body. | 0:44:14 | 0:44:16 | |
That's quite empowering because your own individual bodily | 0:44:16 | 0:44:19 | |
and then emotional and intellectual experience counts. | 0:44:19 | 0:44:23 | |
All sorts of ideas and associations, I find, start to reveal themselves | 0:44:24 | 0:44:28 | |
and of course when you talk to Antony about anything, | 0:44:28 | 0:44:30 | |
his mind, his imagination...it works, it pushes, it pushes. | 0:44:30 | 0:44:33 | |
He's never, I mean, he's the least complacent artist that I know. | 0:44:33 | 0:44:38 | |
Once you do that... | 0:44:54 | 0:44:56 | |
..suddenly the scale of all of this is infinitely changed. | 0:44:57 | 0:45:02 | |
And then, and then you can do this. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:06 | |
And... | 0:45:06 | 0:45:09 | |
and that changes. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:12 | |
HE GASPS | 0:45:12 | 0:45:14 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:45:14 | 0:45:17 | |
This reminds me of something which is the relationship of... | 0:45:20 | 0:45:25 | |
of what you do to other art forms, to dance, for instance. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:29 | |
There is no other art form that is that direct. | 0:45:29 | 0:45:32 | |
To use life itself as your medium, | 0:45:32 | 0:45:34 | |
to use this intense moment of being. | 0:45:34 | 0:45:36 | |
-And to use the human body in ways that... -Yeah. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:38 | |
Ways that are so expressive and so different. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:41 | |
DRUMMING MUSIC | 0:45:44 | 0:45:48 | |
For the past ten years, Gormley has collaborated with dancers | 0:45:55 | 0:46:00 | |
and choreographers from across the world. | 0:46:00 | 0:46:03 | |
Sometimes making frames and props to work with the dancers' bodies. | 0:46:03 | 0:46:09 | |
Or, for Akram Khan, creating a surrogate model | 0:46:17 | 0:46:21 | |
as a double for the body of a dancer. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:23 | |
One of his most recent collaborations was with the choreographer, | 0:46:30 | 0:46:34 | |
Hofesh Shechter. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:35 | |
I mean, the dancer occupies a space | 0:46:41 | 0:46:43 | |
just like your bodies occupy spaces, don't they? | 0:46:43 | 0:46:46 | |
The dancers' intelligence is about being in time, you know? | 0:46:48 | 0:46:53 | |
When Hofesh is doing his... | 0:46:53 | 0:46:57 | |
..his rehearsing, it's just incredible. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:01 | |
The, the, the...the embodied mathematics of the rhythm that he | 0:47:01 | 0:47:09 | |
is in a way inviting his dancers to inherit, it's so precise | 0:47:09 | 0:47:15 | |
but at the same time so intuitive. | 0:47:15 | 0:47:18 | |
What was amazing for me | 0:47:20 | 0:47:21 | |
with Antony is that feeling that we could fly together. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:25 | |
Like, I felt it was a first-time I felt I'm kind of comfortable | 0:47:25 | 0:47:32 | |
telling someone my, my dreams, my thoughts, my fantasies | 0:47:32 | 0:47:36 | |
unfolding the imagination together. | 0:47:36 | 0:47:38 | |
Antony was curious about the bodies of the dancers in a very, | 0:47:46 | 0:47:50 | |
almost mathematical kind of physical way...professor-like way. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:56 | |
The weight of the body and how... can you stand like that? | 0:47:56 | 0:48:00 | |
What he demanded from them was sometimes kind of impossible. | 0:48:04 | 0:48:08 | |
Not movement actually, but being. | 0:48:13 | 0:48:16 | |
Everyone, Antony to the front, please. | 0:48:19 | 0:48:21 | |
The fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square is the | 0:48:21 | 0:48:24 | |
most coveted spot in Britain for showcasing contemporary sculpture. | 0:48:24 | 0:48:28 | |
In 2009, Antony Gormley got his chance | 0:48:30 | 0:48:34 | |
and instead of making an object, | 0:48:34 | 0:48:36 | |
he divided the time into a grid of hours | 0:48:36 | 0:48:39 | |
and put the public on the platform. | 0:48:39 | 0:48:41 | |
One person per hour for 100 days. | 0:48:44 | 0:48:47 | |
To do whatever they wanted as long as it was legal. | 0:48:48 | 0:48:53 | |
There was one woman on the first day. It was just so, so fantastic. | 0:48:53 | 0:48:59 | |
I don't know how she'd done it, | 0:48:59 | 0:49:01 | |
but she got a kind of Cuban mariachi band to come and accompany her | 0:49:01 | 0:49:06 | |
And she was giving it... | 0:49:06 | 0:49:08 | |
And it was just wonderful what happened within the square. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:12 | |
And then those people that took it very conventionally, | 0:49:18 | 0:49:20 | |
that somehow, Trafalgar Square was a place of acknowledgement | 0:49:20 | 0:49:24 | |
of the fallen that had fought in the wars or in Afghanistan. | 0:49:24 | 0:49:28 | |
What other favourites did you have? | 0:49:29 | 0:49:31 | |
I know it's not fair to have favourites. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:32 | |
I think my favourite of all was the agoraphobic girl. | 0:49:32 | 0:49:37 | |
She got up there and she just formed herself into a ball. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:43 | |
You can see why I'm like that. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:45 | |
And she just sort of looked out at the world. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:48 | |
Like this. | 0:49:53 | 0:49:54 | |
For a whole hour and it was just... | 0:49:54 | 0:49:56 | |
she was so small on that great big plinth. | 0:49:56 | 0:49:59 | |
And somehow, quietly became the focus. | 0:50:00 | 0:50:05 | |
I mean, it was really unbelievably powerful. Beautiful. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:11 | |
And you're ready now, I think, to let go sometimes because you... | 0:50:16 | 0:50:20 | |
Yeah, I think...that's what One Another was. | 0:50:20 | 0:50:23 | |
It was a complete letting go. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:25 | |
It was just saying, let's think of our...less as objects | 0:50:25 | 0:50:30 | |
and more as a process. | 0:50:30 | 0:50:32 | |
Less as a noun, more as a verb. | 0:50:32 | 0:50:36 | |
As a transformative space where you can dream. | 0:50:36 | 0:50:41 | |
ELECTRONIC SOUND | 0:50:41 | 0:50:45 | |
Gormley hadn't moved away from making sculptures of the human body. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:54 | |
In 2012, his work Model was a figure made of steel rooms that the | 0:50:55 | 0:51:01 | |
viewer could walk inside. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:03 | |
From the toe up to the head. | 0:51:03 | 0:51:05 | |
What you seem to have done more and more with your later work | 0:51:17 | 0:51:23 | |
is to allow us to have that same experience that you have | 0:51:23 | 0:51:26 | |
when you were encased, you know? | 0:51:26 | 0:51:28 | |
To find our way through space | 0:51:28 | 0:51:31 | |
and to somehow experience the work in a very different way. | 0:51:31 | 0:51:36 | |
The show, Model, was the first time that I'd opened | 0:51:36 | 0:51:41 | |
the body as an experientiable architectural space. | 0:51:41 | 0:51:45 | |
When you end up in the headspace, you are in this very dark chamber. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:53 | |
You...you're almost in this position of being | 0:51:55 | 0:51:58 | |
the consciousness of this collective acoustic environment. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:04 | |
METAL BEING HAMMERED AND WORKED | 0:52:10 | 0:52:14 | |
For the summer of 2015, Gormley is creating a huge exhibition that will | 0:52:29 | 0:52:35 | |
set his new cast-iron block works alongside work of 20 years earlier. | 0:52:35 | 0:52:40 | |
Every aspect of a show requires careful planning. | 0:53:12 | 0:53:16 | |
It's much easier doing it with this scale of work. | 0:53:30 | 0:53:33 | |
HE GASPS | 0:53:46 | 0:53:49 | |
OK, there's our pile for Florence. | 0:53:49 | 0:53:52 | |
Gormley has been invited to make his new exhibition | 0:54:03 | 0:54:07 | |
in a 16th-century Medici fortress on the south side of Florence. | 0:54:07 | 0:54:11 | |
As well as its Renaissance history, | 0:54:11 | 0:54:14 | |
the fort was the setting of a landmark exhibition | 0:54:14 | 0:54:17 | |
for the most famous British sculptor of the 20th century. | 0:54:17 | 0:54:21 | |
In the summer of 1972, the mayor of Florence invited Henry Moore | 0:54:23 | 0:54:27 | |
to arrange an exhibition of his works in the buildings | 0:54:27 | 0:54:29 | |
and grounds of the 16th century Forte di Belvedere. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:33 | |
It was the largest exhibition of his work that there had ever been. | 0:54:33 | 0:54:37 | |
Writing to the mayor, he said, | 0:54:37 | 0:54:38 | |
"No better site for showing sculpture in the open air | 0:54:38 | 0:54:41 | |
"and in relationship to architecture and a town | 0:54:41 | 0:54:44 | |
"could be found anywhere in the world." | 0:54:44 | 0:54:46 | |
When you took on Florence and the fort, you were aware, of course, | 0:54:50 | 0:54:55 | |
who wouldn't be, that there was this extraordinary...? | 0:54:55 | 0:54:58 | |
1972, Henry Moore. | 0:54:58 | 0:55:01 | |
Was the fact that Henry Moore had done that, | 0:55:01 | 0:55:03 | |
was that an incentive for you to do it or did it put you off? | 0:55:03 | 0:55:07 | |
No, I think it was obviously an incentive and it was | 0:55:09 | 0:55:12 | |
obviously also an invitation to do something very different. | 0:55:12 | 0:55:16 | |
Florence is the birthplace of humanism. | 0:55:21 | 0:55:25 | |
The whole idea that man was the measure of all things. | 0:55:25 | 0:55:30 | |
That we were divine. That we were the masters of the universe. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:35 | |
Human is a reality check. When we strip away, in a way, | 0:55:39 | 0:55:42 | |
the illusions of progress, | 0:55:42 | 0:55:45 | |
what are we really? | 0:55:45 | 0:55:46 | |
Or what do we need to become... | 0:55:55 | 0:55:58 | |
in order to be truly human? | 0:55:58 | 0:56:00 | |
The Forte di Belvedere was built for Grand Duke Ferdinando de Medici | 0:56:35 | 0:56:40 | |
at the end of the 16th century. | 0:56:40 | 0:56:42 | |
It was designed to command a defensive position across the city, | 0:56:43 | 0:56:48 | |
but also to show off the power and status of the Medici family. | 0:56:48 | 0:56:52 | |
The Medici were an absolutely... | 0:56:54 | 0:56:57 | |
Lorenzo, in particular, was a highly scheming, | 0:56:57 | 0:57:02 | |
completely ruthless man, | 0:57:02 | 0:57:05 | |
who nevertheless had the first real art school for sculpture. | 0:57:05 | 0:57:10 | |
The beauties that have come down to us from the Renaissance | 0:57:10 | 0:57:14 | |
actually come out of a context of extreme pain. | 0:57:14 | 0:57:18 | |
For this new work in Florence, Anthony has chosen to use | 0:57:22 | 0:57:25 | |
figures that he made 20 years ago | 0:57:25 | 0:57:28 | |
for a site-specific work called Critical Mass, | 0:57:28 | 0:57:31 | |
built for an old tram depot in Vienna. | 0:57:31 | 0:57:34 | |
It was impossible to be in this building | 0:57:40 | 0:57:43 | |
without thinking about the transport, particularly of the Jews. | 0:57:43 | 0:57:47 | |
But that led me then to think about the mechanisation of death. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:53 | |
It's chilling. | 0:57:55 | 0:57:57 | |
It's chilling if one believes in human progress, | 0:58:00 | 0:58:05 | |
but actually we are still behaving in a very Palaeolithic way. | 0:58:05 | 0:58:11 | |
For Critical Mass, Gormley cast 12 different body positions. | 0:58:17 | 0:58:22 | |
He made five copies of each pose. | 0:58:22 | 0:58:25 | |
These figures are deliberately displayed at odd angles. | 0:58:30 | 0:58:35 | |
Upside down or leaning against the wall. | 0:58:35 | 0:58:38 | |
They are all without a plinth. | 0:58:52 | 0:58:54 | |
Each time Critical Mass is displayed, | 0:58:57 | 0:59:00 | |
Gormley arranges some of the figures in a pile. | 0:59:00 | 0:59:04 | |
I think of Critical Mass as my anti-monument | 0:59:07 | 0:59:09 | |
to the fallout of the 20th century. | 0:59:09 | 0:59:12 | |
Broadly speaking, the pile is history, | 0:59:17 | 0:59:20 | |
something that we can do little about, | 0:59:20 | 0:59:23 | |
other than bear witness to it. | 0:59:23 | 0:59:25 | |
But the pile is also bad history. | 0:59:34 | 0:59:36 | |
The pile is the foil to any illusion of idealism | 0:59:37 | 0:59:42 | |
that might be represented by the heroic statue. | 0:59:42 | 0:59:46 | |
On the opposite side of the battlement, | 1:00:11 | 1:00:13 | |
the arrangement of figures carries a sense of order and progression. | 1:00:13 | 1:00:18 | |
The breakthrough was realising | 1:00:20 | 1:00:22 | |
that the 12 positions of Critical Mass could be shown in a line | 1:00:22 | 1:00:27 | |
as an evolution of crouching, | 1:00:27 | 1:00:30 | |
ground, facing, foetal figures | 1:00:30 | 1:00:36 | |
to a body standing absolutely erect like a soldier, | 1:00:36 | 1:00:43 | |
ready to take orders but looking up at the sky. | 1:00:43 | 1:00:47 | |
I think it's just trying to look at those aspirations | 1:00:52 | 1:00:58 | |
for human perfectibility | 1:00:58 | 1:01:00 | |
and indeed the whole idea of progress. | 1:01:00 | 1:01:03 | |
You've got to see both sides, | 1:01:04 | 1:01:07 | |
you've got to have the illusion of progress. | 1:01:07 | 1:01:10 | |
You've got to have the truth of this pile of inert matter. | 1:01:11 | 1:01:15 | |
What Critical Mass began as was a meditation | 1:01:20 | 1:01:25 | |
on the ever greater ubiquity of war. | 1:01:25 | 1:01:29 | |
And in a way, the normalisation of war. | 1:01:29 | 1:01:32 | |
Well, things haven't changed much. | 1:01:32 | 1:01:34 | |
In fact, it's been a progress of the infiltration | 1:01:34 | 1:01:37 | |
of the theatre of war into civilian life | 1:01:37 | 1:01:40 | |
and now in certain parts of the world, | 1:01:40 | 1:01:42 | |
we don't know whether a child is just a child or a child and a bomb. | 1:01:42 | 1:01:48 | |
Here in Florence, Critical Mass is shown | 1:01:55 | 1:01:58 | |
alongside his most recent works, | 1:01:58 | 1:02:01 | |
whose block-like forms speak of technology and the digital age. | 1:02:01 | 1:02:07 | |
As you get closer, you see that the symmetry | 1:02:11 | 1:02:14 | |
that was present in Critical Mass | 1:02:14 | 1:02:17 | |
is now giving way to a kind of chaos. | 1:02:17 | 1:02:20 | |
Looking at them, I can't help but think of Sleeping Place, | 1:02:22 | 1:02:27 | |
made on his return from India more than 40 years ago. | 1:02:27 | 1:02:31 | |
This is the site that has become familiar to us, | 1:02:33 | 1:02:36 | |
the homeless in the front porch of the bank. | 1:02:36 | 1:02:40 | |
I mean, it's just about recognising | 1:02:40 | 1:02:42 | |
the exact opposite of Michelangelo's David. | 1:02:42 | 1:02:45 | |
This isn't to deny the beauty and aspiration of works like that, | 1:02:45 | 1:02:50 | |
but actually the need | 1:02:50 | 1:02:53 | |
to make us see, | 1:02:53 | 1:02:57 | |
to make us see what things really, really are, | 1:02:57 | 1:03:00 | |
and this isn't an illustration of it, it's actually, | 1:03:00 | 1:03:04 | |
hopefully just using these blocks to make us think about | 1:03:04 | 1:03:07 | |
what it feels like to be there, exposed. | 1:03:07 | 1:03:11 | |
Trying to find a place, in a way, | 1:03:11 | 1:03:17 | |
a place of intimacy in a world | 1:03:17 | 1:03:23 | |
that has somehow forgotten you. | 1:03:23 | 1:03:26 | |
BIRDSONG | 1:03:36 | 1:03:38 | |
..Uno. | 1:04:33 | 1:04:34 | |
CHEERING | 1:04:34 | 1:04:36 | |
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN | 1:05:10 | 1:05:13 | |
One of the most powerful things in Antony's work is isolation. | 1:05:39 | 1:05:42 | |
There is a paradox in Antony's own life. | 1:05:45 | 1:05:48 | |
I mean, he's a very gregarious individual, | 1:05:49 | 1:05:52 | |
he's a very collaborative individual, but, erm, he can still | 1:05:52 | 1:05:55 | |
ruminate in his work... | 1:05:55 | 1:05:58 | |
on the ultimate isolation of all human beings. | 1:05:58 | 1:06:01 |