Londonist Stalks...Antony Gormley

M@
By M@ Last edited 201 months ago
Londonist Stalks...Antony Gormley

Well, the big man’s in town – over thirty times – so we thought it apt to track down his other work in the capital. On the map at the bottom, green points indicate temporary installations that form the Event Horizon project, and purple markers are permanent pieces that predate this show.

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1. Quantum Cloud, Greenwich Peninsula

Did you know that London contains a Gormley sculpture taller than the Angel of the North? Quantum Cloud stands 30 metres tall and is composed of hundreds of tetrahedral frames. As you walk past, a seemingly random arrangement of metal rods transforms into the outline of a human figure – a bit like those channel 4 title sequences. The artist is up to his usual tricks, programming the shape of his own body into the sculpture. This is, perhaps, the largest piece of public sculpture in London, but is poorly known thanks to its desolate location. That should change from July, when the reinvigorated Dome reopens for business.

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2. The Planets, British Library Forecourt

Gormley proved prescient with this commission, carving eight planetary bodies instead of the established nine. A few years later, Pluto was relegated to planetoid, leaving our solar system with eight grown-up planets. The arrangement shows the octet of celestial bodies treated as (surprise, surprise) folded over human bodies. The granite boulders come from a glacial plane to the south of Sweden. They are arranged around ‘poet’s circle’ so that they appear to orbit the centrally placed viewer.

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3. Other life-size sculptures

We’ve also tracked down four further Gormley figures about town, which aren’t part of the Event Horizon stunt. They seem to be congregating on Euston Road. Twin Gormleys gape at one another from either side of a window at number 350. While across the road, the new Wellcome Collection building boasts an upside-down Gormley in its foyer, called ‘Feel’. Finally, the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm has a rooftop Gormley that predates Event Horizon by a few months.

Have we missed any? Let us know in the comments.

Last Updated 02 June 2007