Here is an extract from an essay I've written...
Antony Gormley, an internationally established sculptor and winner of the Turner prize, uses his body as a means of expression. In Gormley's work, the body almost becomes a shell; its purely a means for creating casts and iron moulds. In which Gormley then tries to communicate an idea;
‘Accept that we live in a world of the visible, but make it unsatisfactory enough that behind the visible is some kind of potential that does not exist in the sculpture, but exists in the viewer.’
Gormley expresses the understanding that he feels to a certain degree, his work is unsatisfactory; it is asking you to look for something in yourself that can empathize with the inner space of his work, of which is not an object, as such. He feels his sculptures and casts that represent the body do so as a condition, not as a given identity. In essence, he has striped the body of any personal identity, personality, and feelings it may have possessed or expressed; taking away any empathy felt by us, the viewers, to turn the body into nothing but a catalyst. Gormley replaces the surface structure of skin and hair with rough and coarse materials, making the bodies almost unidentifiable as a structure that would have once been recognisable as a living entity.
‘Another Place’, a sculpture of Gormley’s set across three kilometres of Crosby beach in Liverpool, is home to 100 life sized cast iron sculptures of Gormley’s body. They are displayed at different stages of rising out of the sand with all of them turned facing towards the sea; staring out at the horizon with a sense of hopeful expectation.
Like a lot of his other works, the ‘Another Place’ sculptures have been stripped of everything
personal; everything that would make them recognisable as a living entity; a personality, an expression, a soul; and this has been done purposely. They stand unclothed, a small shell of their real-life double, prone to a number of physical changes at the mercy of mother nature.
Due to its obvious ‘sense of place’ connotations, I feel the theme of identity has somewhat been shelved. I am not in any way questioning Gormley’s motives; yes, in part I believe it stands as a poetic response to the universal sentiments associated with emigration; the sadness of leaving a place behind, coupled with the hopefulness of a future in a new place. However, I feel I must ask, why 100 sculptures? Wouldn’t one sculpture still serve the same purpose? Perhaps Gormley felt his message wouldn’t be as strong with just one. I, however, feel if just one sculpture was made, the work may have adopted a whole new line of questioning; it would have sustained our focus and interest, put forward and questioned identity within a social context, not just to be focused upon the people here, but everywhere in the world. It would have focused on the past social identity of these people, seeking out new places to live. Why he didn’t feel the need to highlight both agendas within this work is anyone's guess...
I guess we'll never know!
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