The CURATION Of: 'Antony Gormley: Body Politic', White Cube Bermondsey
Visited 06/01/2024
The ‘Antony Gormley: Body Politic’ exhibition, at White Cube Bermondsey.
Sir Antony Gormley (1950-) is a name long familiar in the British art scene and his anthropomorphic sculptures go hand in hand. Reinventing the human body throughout his career and placing it in different spatial contexts, Gormley’s exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey brings back more of the same. ‘Body Politic’ explores themes of refuge and migration and these newer works (2021-23) connect with the gallery space in a refreshing yet solemn manner.
Starting from outside the gallery, eight Retreat sculptures are spaced out in a line that goes from the front yard and down the length of the corridor. These claustrophobic, concrete sculptures form the spine of the exhibition. Gormley offers abstract shells for one to hide into, with a small hole left open where the mouth would be. These works reflect a double meaning in one’s self-isolation, serving as both a personal freedom and a restricted space.
Bind is a sculpture made from three long lines of black steel, starting from the walls, floor and ceiling, all converging into the centre of the room. The body originates and grows from the space surrounding it. We are invited to duck under and step over the limbs of the body and acknowledge the relation between art and space.
Gormley’s Weave Works possess a contemplative, emotional nature. Some of these rusty, latticed, cast iron sculptures rely on being propped up against the walls in an interesting use of the gallery space. We become more aware of their balance and integrity, as well as of our own physicality. A living presence exudes from these industrial skeletons and we attach familiar emotions and meaning to the poses held by the sculptures.
And is it really a White Cube Bermondsey exhibition if the works are not giant? Stand looms large, alone in its room, demanding awe and projecting fear to those who walk close. Corten steel beams are stacked like Jenga pieces to nearly five metres tall in an impressive construction.
In the final room, 244 body-forms lay, rest, or curl up across the floor. We create our own paths to step carefully through the terracotta bodies, some relaxed, some pained, but all tired. Visually and perhaps emotionally overwhelming, the situation emulates a refugee camp. Somehow, a sad loneliness can be felt in each figure despite the crowded room. An empathic expanse, it is really only this installation which ties together the theme of the exhibition with the works.
The already industrial nature of White Cube’s gallery space strengthens the narrative Gormley is presenting. Opposed to his most famous works where anthropomorphic sculptures are standing in a field or by the sea (Angel of the North and Another Place), there is a sense of belonging here, as though humans and the industrial world accommodate for each other. Nature’s green and blue is cast aside for industrial browns and greys. ‘Body Politic’ suggests to visitors that the contemporary body relates closer to man-made creations than the natural world. It is as though society is falling into an existential crisis - lost and disconnected. Gormley beckons how only by slowing down, retreating and taking refuge, can freedoms of movement and mind be rediscovered.
The next three reviews:
‘Entangled Pasts, 1768-now’ exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts
‘Neil Stokoe’ exhibition, Saatchi Yates
‘Barbara Kruger: Thinking of
You. I MeanMe. I Mean You.’ exhibition, Serpentine South Gallery
Yaunt - an abbreviation of my Chinese name
Yaunt Gallery - the end goal