Antony Gormley is a British artists who is best known for his sculptures and art works. He is recognised nationally and internationally with exhibits around the world. His most famous sculpture in the UK is the Angel of the North. Through his work he aims to “investigate the relationship of the human body to space” (Gormley) to evoke new behaviours, thoughts and feelings.
His projects include Domain Fields, 2003 which filled an entire floor of the Baltic in Newcastle. The sculptures were made from volunteers ranging from the age of 2 to 85. Their bodies were moulded in plaster by trained members of staff . The moulds were used to create individual domain sculptures by wielding stainless steel bars which varied in length. Across the floor there were 287 sculptures.
However, Gormley believed the act of someone walking through the sculptures was the performance as the sculptures “call upon our conscious, our feeling, our movement and we become part of the work.” (Gormley,2009) I hadn’t thought a piece needed an audience in order to make a performance complete. I began to question if our piece with the toy soldiers. Do we need an audience? This would create a different meaning to the performance as it would juxtapose us ‘killing’ (painting the soldiers red) with everyday life. Especially working in the cafe where people are passing through all the time in the afternoon there is the possibility that sometimes no-one will be watching the performance. Would this alter the original idea of just remembering the dead? How would the audience know they are in a performance?
Gormley, A. (2009) Antony Gormley: DOMAIN FIELD, GARAGE CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURE, MOSCOW, 2009. [online] Available from: http://www.antonygormley.com/show/item-view/id/2283/type/solo [Accessed 16th March 2015]
http://www.antonygormley.com/biography