STANDING high above the cityscape, at the top of a grand set of steps, ten cast-iron “blockwork” sculptures by Antony Gormley look over Philadelphia. Situated at the entrance of the city’s landmark museum – one of the largest and most revered in the United States – the British artist’s installation STAND makes a case for the role that sculpture can play within the public realm.
STAND (2018) by Antony Gormley. Courtesy of: Antony Gormley and Sean Kelly
Gormley’s figures, each rising ten feet high and weighing nearly three tons, appear at first sight as an assemblage: they are monumental in scale and appear pieced together through an amalgamation of geometric forms. The bodies are architectural rather than anatomical; sculptures not statues. Their powerful abstract presence encourages a feeling of collective engagement, as well as an awareness of personal subjectivity.
By engaging with our civic spaces, through these artworks, a level of self-reflection naturally occurs – in relation to who we are as we appear next to these figures, and how we feel as part of a larger, shared landscape.
STAND (2018) by Antony Gormley. Courtesy of: Antony Gormley and Sean Kelly
Public art projects have been critical to the artist’s practice. His Angel of the North, a soaring steel work that has been a landmark in Gateshead since 1998, has become one of England’s most instantly recognisable public sculptures. Nearly a decade later, Gormley presented Event Horizon, a group of solitary life-size figures made from casts of his own body that occupied areas of London’s Southbank, before being shown around Madison Square in New York, and then sites in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
For an outdoor public work, STAND still enables visitors to have a profound level of interaction with the museum itself. Perhaps this is due to the highly visible placement of the installation, spreading across the building’s terrace in a way that is commanding rather than imposing. The power of STAND shows itself through this ability to activate the space around it, and yet simultaneously merge within it.
STAND (2018) by Antony Gormley. Courtesy of: Antony Gormley and Sean Kelly
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is currently undergoing a major renovation by the iconic Los Angeles-based architect Frank Gehry. If its newly opened restaurant, Stir, designed by Gehry, is anything to go by, the refurbishment will offer some rich additions to the existing building. The museum’s recently renovated Chinese galleries, and the forthcoming makeover of its Impressionist wing, only underlines the importance of its incredible collection, which includes the world’s largest holdings of works by Marcel Duchamp, as well as the finest group of works by Constantin Brancusi outside of Europe.
by Derby Jones
Antony Gormley: STAND is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art until 16 June 2019.
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