ANOTHER TIME VIII
Gormley, Antony
Life Story
ANOTHER TIME VIII is one of three life-sized cast iron figures from his ongoing ANOTHER TIME series which has been presented in various configurations across the globe. They derive from a series of seventeen distinct body castings taken from the artist in 1995. The three figures included in this installation were then cast in iron in 2007.
The sculptures are placed at focal points and prominent sightlines, including roof level, which are uncanny, thought-provoking and offer spectacle and surprise. The artist selected the locations after being attracted to the remarkable monumental architecture of the University buildings designed by Sir Denys Lasdun. The project was created by the Sainsbury Centre in collaboration Antony Gormley. The figures were made from resin-sand casting made from fibreglass patterns. They were cast at Joseph and Jesse Siddons Foundry in West Bromwich, UK. Each figure was cast in a single section and they are solid iron.
The three figures are located at three points. A figure is situated on the roofline of the Lasdun-designed teaching wall megastructure and visible from the Sainsbury Centre. This building represents the backbone of the University campus. Another figure is placed on the roofline of the University Library. The third figure is placed at the end of the Library colonnade, part of the extensive elevated walkway. The three sculptures all look out towards the parkland and form a trail leading the spectator through the campus.
As with all the sculptures in the ANOTHER TIME series, this installation plays with the relationship between object and space. According to Antony Gormley, ‘It calls upon the connection between the palpable, the perceivable and the imaginable’. The work on the walkway, seen in perspective at the end of the library colonnade, is a body whose mass can be touched. It engages with the moving bodies of the spectators that share its plane. The other two are at roof height; the meeting between sky and earth, mediated by architecture. These far-off sentinels suggest a connection between the imagination and a horizon unavailable to those immersed within the campus buildings
The project was devised to launch the campus Sculpture Park. In this instance, to encourage the appreciation of its built environment. It provides an opportunity to look again at the modernist architecture and provide a new perspective on scale and elevation.
Antony Gormley is one of the most prominent contemporary British artists and his work is celebrated internationally. He is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to its spatial environment. His work has developed the potential opened up by sculpture since the 1960s. Through a critical engagement with both his own body and those of others, his work confronts fundamental questions of where human beings stand in relation to nature and the cosmos.
Gormley continually tries to identify the space of art as a place of becoming in which new behaviours, thoughts and feelings can arise. His work represents an enduring engagement with the human figure which he continually re-invents as he explores our relationship to the environment. There is participatory element to his work and engagement with the public. He has often worked with communities to create works such as the celebrated Field for the British Isles, 1993. He is perhaps best known in the UK for his celebrated monumental sculpture, Angel of the North, 1998.
Calvin Winner, November 2021
On display
Title/Description: ANOTHER TIME VIII
Born: 2007
Object Type: Outdoor sculpture
Measurements: h. 1910 x w. 590 x d. 360 mm
Accession Number: L.81
Copyright: © Antony Gormley
Credit Line: On loan to the Sainsbury Centre
