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Lot Essay
‘These hard, sharp, interlocking, rectangular masses are …used to explore a registered moment in a living body’
(A. Gormley, interview with D. Ozerkov in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2011, p. 57).
Executed on a life-size scale, Shrive VII (Twisted) is a captivating example of Antony Gormley’s attempts to apply the rules of architecture to the human form. Situated within an oeuvre that has the human figure at its core, the modular composition of Shrive VII (Twisted) places the body’s natural contours in direct dialogue with a contemporary vocabulary of architecture and construction. A series of geometric cast iron blocks, stacked and interlocked in varying sizes, generates a complex structure of vertical and horizontal planes that suggest a standing human figure. ‘These hard, sharp, interlocking, rectangular masses are … used to explore a registered moment in a living body’, Gormley explains (A. Gormley, interview with D. Ozerkov in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2011, p. 57). Elsewhere, drawing out a compelling tension between the fields of human anatomy and digital architectonics, the artist reveals that ‘the materialized pixel was very much in my mind at the beginning of the block work series’ (A. Gormley, quoted in M. Iversen, ‘Still Standing’ in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2011, p. 50).
Central to Gormley’s practice is the use of his own body as a mould. Shrive VII (Twisted) is closely related to Gormley’s other blockwork sculptures, including Turn, Splice, Shy, List, Clutch and Haft. These works explore the ‘struggle between [...] symmetry and asymmetry’ in his depiction of ‘These hard, sharp, interlocking, rectangular masses are …used to explore a registered moment in a living body’ (A. Gormley, interview with D. Ozerkov in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2011, p. 57).different physical states of being (A. Gormley, www.antonygormley.com/sculpture/item-view/id/267 [accessed 18 December 2013]). Many of these works are modeled on body-positions produced for the earlier series Ataxia which, inspired by a medical condition characterised by a breakdown of the nervous system, portrays a series of figural contortions ‘perhaps caused by a moment of spasm, whereby the human figure has lost its centre of gravity (A. Gormley, ibid.). In the present work, whose title Shrive invokes the act of confession, Gormley retains this obscured gravitational centre whilst simultaneously exploring a more linear, upright posture.
Despite using his own body as the basis for his work, Gormley is quite clear that his sculptures are not intended as portraits. Rather, he claims, ‘I just use my existence as an example of the universal human condition’ (A. Gormley, interview with D. Ozerkov in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2011, p. 59). In using himself as a vehicle, rather than a muse, Gormley creates works that function as ‘resonators for human experience’. ‘You could say that each of them displaces a space where someone could really stand’, he claims. ‘… This acknowledgement of the absent is very important and is what needs to be filled by the subjectivity of the viewer. So I would say that the subject of my work does not arrive until the viewer is looking at it’ (A. Gormley, ibid., p. 59).
(A. Gormley, interview with D. Ozerkov in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2011, p. 57).
Executed on a life-size scale, Shrive VII (Twisted) is a captivating example of Antony Gormley’s attempts to apply the rules of architecture to the human form. Situated within an oeuvre that has the human figure at its core, the modular composition of Shrive VII (Twisted) places the body’s natural contours in direct dialogue with a contemporary vocabulary of architecture and construction. A series of geometric cast iron blocks, stacked and interlocked in varying sizes, generates a complex structure of vertical and horizontal planes that suggest a standing human figure. ‘These hard, sharp, interlocking, rectangular masses are … used to explore a registered moment in a living body’, Gormley explains (A. Gormley, interview with D. Ozerkov in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2011, p. 57). Elsewhere, drawing out a compelling tension between the fields of human anatomy and digital architectonics, the artist reveals that ‘the materialized pixel was very much in my mind at the beginning of the block work series’ (A. Gormley, quoted in M. Iversen, ‘Still Standing’ in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2011, p. 50).
Central to Gormley’s practice is the use of his own body as a mould. Shrive VII (Twisted) is closely related to Gormley’s other blockwork sculptures, including Turn, Splice, Shy, List, Clutch and Haft. These works explore the ‘struggle between [...] symmetry and asymmetry’ in his depiction of ‘These hard, sharp, interlocking, rectangular masses are …used to explore a registered moment in a living body’ (A. Gormley, interview with D. Ozerkov in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2011, p. 57).different physical states of being (A. Gormley, www.antonygormley.com/sculpture/item-view/id/267 [accessed 18 December 2013]). Many of these works are modeled on body-positions produced for the earlier series Ataxia which, inspired by a medical condition characterised by a breakdown of the nervous system, portrays a series of figural contortions ‘perhaps caused by a moment of spasm, whereby the human figure has lost its centre of gravity (A. Gormley, ibid.). In the present work, whose title Shrive invokes the act of confession, Gormley retains this obscured gravitational centre whilst simultaneously exploring a more linear, upright posture.
Despite using his own body as the basis for his work, Gormley is quite clear that his sculptures are not intended as portraits. Rather, he claims, ‘I just use my existence as an example of the universal human condition’ (A. Gormley, interview with D. Ozerkov in Antony Gormley: Still Standing, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2011, p. 59). In using himself as a vehicle, rather than a muse, Gormley creates works that function as ‘resonators for human experience’. ‘You could say that each of them displaces a space where someone could really stand’, he claims. ‘… This acknowledgement of the absent is very important and is what needs to be filled by the subjectivity of the viewer. So I would say that the subject of my work does not arrive until the viewer is looking at it’ (A. Gormley, ibid., p. 59).