Royal Academy of Arts Contents roy.ac/teachers 21 September – Introduction Email studentgroups@ 3 December 2019 Illustrated key works with royalacademy.org.uk information, questions, key or call 020 7300 5995 to words and links to other artists book your visit Classroom activities

Teacher Resource Suitable for teaching KS3–5 and FE Introduction

Angel of the North, which stands 20 to sculpture, he resists realistic Left: Portrait of Antony Gormley. metres high and is located just outside representation, preferring instead to Photo by Benjamin McMahon Gateshead in the north of England. construct environments that focus on Below: Field for the British Isles, 1993. the experience of the viewer. As he Terracotta. Variable size: approx. 40,000 elements, each 8-26 cm tall. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Born in London, Gormley was explains, ‘What I hope I’ve done is to Centre, London © the Artist. Installation view, Irish educated at a Catholic boarding school completely remove the problem of the Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland. Arts Council in North Yorkshire. After completing his subject.’ Collection, England degree in archaeology, anthropology This Turner Prize winning work consisting of and history of art at Trinity College, approximately 40,000 clay figures of various heights from 8–26 cm was created by a community of 100 Cambridge, he spent three years in people from St Helens, Merseyside. The makers were India. During this time, he studied given the following instruction: ‘Take a hand-sized vipassana, an ancient Buddhist ball of clay, form it between the hands, into a body- surrogate as quickly as possible. Place it at arm’s meditation technique that focuses on length in front of you and give it eyes.’ the connection between body and mind. Moving back to London in 1974, Gormley studied at Goldsmiths’ College before completing a two-year post- Antony Gormley (b. 1950) is a graduate degree at the Slade School British sculptor. His work explores of Fine Art. In 1981 he was offered the relationship of the human body his first solo show at the Whitechapel to time and space. Best known for Gallery, London. Around this time he his ‘bodyform’ sculptures, Gormley began to make the human body the challenges and interrogates traditional primary focus of his work. notions of the presentation of the human figure in the history of Western Many of Gormley’s interests in the art. Rather than monumentalising his 1970s and 1980s are still present in subjects, he explores the body as a his work today. Throughout his career container for human experience, and to date, he has been intrigued by the the involvement of the viewer is integral dark space inside the body; the human to the meaning of the work. Ranging experience of life, death, growth and from small-scale to larger installations, reproduction; and the relationship his projects are realised both inside between the natural and built worlds. and outside the gallery space. In 1994, Gormley’s inventive approach to Gormley was awarded the Turner Prize different materials and processes for Field for the British Isles and in 1998 remains essential to the meaning of his he completed his best-known work, work. Defying conventional approaches Antony Gormley, Angel of the North, 1998. Steel, 20 x 54 x 2.2 m. Permanent installation, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, UK. © the Artist. Photo: Edifice / Bridgeman Images GalleryGallery 5 5 Gallery 6

Gallery 3 Central Hall Lecture Room

Gallery 2 Gallery 2

Land, Sea and Air I

and for which he has become so well Key words Questions for students known (see Land, Sea and Air II). The process of concealing the object to Is it possible to guess which of the three remove it from view was a revelation conceal objects contains the original stone? to Gormley and pre-empted his elements exploration of the dark interior of the Why do you think Gormley gave this work the human body. encase title Land, Sea and Air I? entomb Experimenting with different materials By referring to land, sea and air in the title, is at the core of Gormley’s practice. granite stone Gormley suggests a landscape. Many of his In this work, the primary elements Land Sea and Air I, 1977–79. irreducible other works depict the human body. Suggest Lead, stone, water and air. Three elements; of earth, air and water are wrapped ways in which the human body could become a 20 x 31 20 cm © the Artist. Photo: Stephen White in lead, a permanent and irreducible lead landscape. & Co. substance. At once, Gormley both plumber’s solder preserves and entombs nature. Describe your own inner landscape. What preserve shape would it have? What colours? What In 1979, Land, Sea and Air I was pre-empt textures? exhibited as part of Gormley’s In the summer of 1977, Gormley postgraduate sculpture show at the welding How has Gormley changed our perception of visited Ireland. While in Connemara, Slade School of Art, where it was the stone, air and water by concealing them? displayed alongside other works he on the west coast, he picked up a had made from stone, wood and bread. By concealing an object we could protect, granite stone and took it home. Back In the Royal Academy exhibition, the preserve and even extend its life. Give in London, he encased the stone in work is shown in Gallery 2 in a similar examples of preservation of both natural and lead, welding the pieces together using context. man-made things. plumber’s solder. A year later, Gormley opened the wrapped stone. He went How do titles of artworks, such as Land, Sea on to encase it in lead twice more. He and Air l, help us to relate to the objects we left one of the lead cases empty, filled are looking at? What is the role of the title in another with water, and left the third revealing the mystery encased in the lead? case with the original stone inside. Suggest an alternative title for this artwork. Grouped together, these three rounded shapes form Land, Sea and Air I. How does this work compare in its use of

materials to another work in this exhibition, Gormley still sees this work as ‘the Host? foundation of everything [he is] trying to do’. His lead-encased objects were a precursor to the bodyforms he started to experiment with in the early 1980s, Related themes and Link Extension for KS4/KS5 curriculum links

Art & Design Land Sea and Air II, 1982. Giuseppe Penone | Arte Povera Lead and fibreglass, 45 × 103 × 50 cm (crouching), 191 × 50 × 32 cm (standing), 118 × 69 × 52 cm Arte Povera was a radical Italian art Explore connections with art (kneeling). West Wittering Beach, West Sussex, 1982 movement from the late 1960s into the © the Artist movements such as Arte Povera, early 1970s. Artists who formed part of the Minimalism and Land Art. movement were interested in exploring unconventional methods and using a wide Design-Technology and Science range of non-traditional materials such as earth, rocks, clothing, paper and rope. Discuss the properties of materials The term Arte Povera means ‘poor art’ and such as lead and techniques such as was coined in 1967 by Italian art critic and welding. curator Germano Celant. Giuseppe Penone, a leading Arte Povera Consider the process of encasing artist, shares Gormley’s interest in exploring objects. Land Sea and Air ll Both works are titled Land, Sea and Air the nature of skin as a container of and each one includes three pieces. the body. Penone’s Breath sculptures In 1982, Gormley returned to a What other similarities do they share? investigate the mark-making potential of similar format, constructing another Gormley used lead for both works, the sculptor’s hand on their work. The large, sculpture in three pieces, exploring stating ‘lead is a wonderful insulator, pot-like forms bear the imprint of the artist’s Related art exam topics the connection between the body and against liquid or sound leakage, against body on the clay, from his open mouth at the top all the way down to his legs. the elements of earth, water and air. In radioactivity.’ Lead is long-lasting Land, Sea and Air II, the three pieces and offers protection to the fragile the elements The series of drawings titled Breath of Clay are not stones but bodies, placed on a substances inside the cases. How document the thinking process behind connections beach. The first is crouching, listening does Gormley make us think about the sculptures, as Penone imagined the to the ground; the second is standing, radioactivity and the environment? form his exhaled breath would take and spaces looking out to sea; and the third is transformed it into a kind of clay container wrap kneeling with its nostrils open as if In Land, Sea and Air ll, Gormley for his body. inhaling the sky. placed the figures outdoors, facing Consider using easily available materials the elements. Do we relate to works such as stones, mud or clay to explore differently when we see them outdoors the possibilities of mark-making that rather than in a gallery space? Can are unique to yourself and related to the you think of an example where you way you experience materials through encountered an artwork outdoors? your senses (touch, smell, etc.). Create a Describe your experience. visual diary of your thinking and making processes, documenting your attempts and explorations with drawings or photographs.

Classroom activity us to understand the concerns, ideas Further Research Useful links Containers and concepts he would like to share with a viewer. When looking at Gormley’s first work In response to the work of Land Artists Art movement Before deciding on a title, students titled Land Sea and Air l, we need to such as Walter De Maria and Robert Arte Povera should consider what hidden fears, imagine what is encased inside the Smithson, Antony Gormley created www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/arte- aspirations, issues and opinions are lead containers. The substances have his work Re-arranged Desert, 1979, in povera important to them. When presenting been removed from sight and touch. To Arizona in the United States. Research their work to the class, they should recall the substance from the title, we Land Art and make comparisons with Artist encourage questioning and discuss a need to use our imagination. Gormley’s ideas and interests. Giuseppe Penone range of possible interpretations that www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/giuseppe- their work might evoke. Divide the class into several small penone-1754 groups and ask each group to conceal objects (or an idea) inside three Artworks containers of their choice. Breath 5, 1978 by Giuseppe Penone Resources and materials www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/penone- The containers should have something breath-5-t03420 in common (materials, shapes, textures, Found objects or small natural forms size, etc.) and the objects inside them such as leaves, bark, small branches, Study for Breath of Clay, 1978 by should be completely hidden. stones, etc. Giuseppe Penone www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/penone- Each group should choose a title for Materials for encasing the objects such study-for-breath-of-clay-t06773 their work before the groups take turns as clay, paper, foil, cling film, mod-roc, to present their work to the class. Ask papier mâché, fabric, wool. students to consider the relationship between the title, the substance they Glue, masking tape, needles and are encasing and the materials they will thread. be using. Pencils, pens, paper (for sketching and Discussing the materials he chose for planning) this work, Antony Gormley explained that his lead works are ‘responses to the Cold War and to the fear that humans might be the agents of their own destruction’.

Ask the students to discuss Gormley’s choice of materials and how they help Gallery 3

Matrix III

recurring theme in Gormley’s work. Key words Questions for students He deliberately used building steel to create the structure, describing the work as ‘the cage we all live in, the disorientate When walking past a building site do you pay ghost of the environment that we’ve attention to the skeleton of the building? What distort all chosen to accept as our primary do you notice? What kind of materials are being habitat’. embodying used? ephemeral Created specifically for the Royal Gormley wants us to think differently about Academy exhibition, Matrix III is expansion architecture. How does walking underneath ambitious in scale. (Previous versions this heavy grid make you feel about the Matrix III, 2019. grids Approximately 6 tonnes of 6 mm mild steel of this work have included up to just 16 construction suspended above you? What new reinforcing mesh, 7.1 x 9.3 x 15.15 m. Installation view, rectangular mesh boxes.) Suspended intersecting ways of thinking about architecture does it ‘Antony Gormley’, Royal Academy of Arts, London, from the ceiling of the largest gallery, suggest to you? 21September to 3 December 2019 © the Artist. skeletal Photo: Oak Taylor-Smith it has the appearance of an enormous thundercloud. The complex steel suspended How does it make you feel when you look structure disorientates and distorts through the complex layered grids of steel? Do void distance and perspective for viewers you become more aware of yourself and your own body within the space? Matrix III is constructed from multiple who navigate around and beneath sheets of recycled steel mesh. These it. Contradicting the assumption that metal grids are welded together to architecture is a stable place that What is the difference between your bedroom form 21 intersecting rectangular boxes provides comfort and shelter, in Matrix and the main hall at your school? How do you of various sizes, with an invisible void at III Gormley creates a skeletal and feel inside the different spaces? the centre. The entire work measures ephemeral giant with no boundaries. just over 7.1 x 9.3 x 15.15 metres and If you could change something about a building weighs approximately six tonnes. The that you inhabit regularly, what would you steel mass is suspended just above change? Do you prefer to be inside a building head height at 1.95 metres. (Steel or outside surrounded by nature? What does it mesh is usually used to provide invisible feel like to be inside a building? support inside large concrete blocks.)

Embodying the theme of expansion, these repeated and extended rectangular forms derive from a core volume that is comparable to the average size of a new-build European bedroom. The relationship of the human body and the built world is a Related themes and Link Extension for KS4/KS5 curriculum links

Art & Design Horizon Field Hamburg, 2012. Renzo Piano Steel 355, steel spiral strand cables, stainless steel mesh (safety net), wooden floor, screws and PU In January 2019, during his exhibition Compare and contrast with artists, such resin for top-surface coating, 20.6 x 24.9 x 48.9 m. The Art of Making Buildings, at the Royal as Richard Wilson RA, who create large Installation views, ‘Antony Gormley: Horizon Field Hamburg’, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg Academy, the architect Renzo Piano scale installations. Honorary RA discussed the influences on his work. Design-Technology and Science Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, into a Learn about welding, suspension, family of builders. From the Jean-Marie weight, mass, balance Tjibaou Cultural Centre in New Caledonia (1991–1998) to the Shard in London (2000–2010), Piano’s buildings show a characteristic sense of lightness, along Horizon Field Hamburg, 2012 Compare Horizon Field Hamburg with an interplay between tradition and invention, function and context. Related art exam topics to Matrix lll. How do the large-scale Horizon Field Hamburg is a platform installations create a sense of space? Research his work and consider the 50 metres long and 25 metres wide Or even terror? What does it feel like force way architects like Renzo Piano create with a horizontal security net along to be under a huge metal frame? rewarding experiences and a pleasing spaces the edges. Viewers are invited to walk How does the presence and even atmosphere for the people who visit, live or across the frame, which can carry up the conversations of other visitors work in their buildings. materials to 100 people at any one time. Their contribute to the atmosphere? assembled motion transmits vibrations and creates a powerful sensation for any visitor out of place who is under it. The people walking interwoven on the frame and those beneath it are exchanging an experience of visiting light and dark the gallery and thereby becoming part of the installation.

Classroom activity Further Research Useful links Suspended

Using barbecue skewers or uncooked Conrad Shawcross RA Video spaghetti (cheaper but far more The Dappled Light of the Sun Learn more about making fragile), students can create several The Dappled Light of the Sun, by grids, similar to Matrix lll, by attaching The Dappled Light of the Sun is an Conrad Shawcross RA. the BBQ skewers to one another with installation by Conrad Shawcross RA. vimeo.com/127855463 marshmallows. The large-scale steel forms, made with thousands of tetrahedrons, are Artist Each student starts by carefully suspended like clouds above the Renzo Piano threading the marshmallows, spaced at viewers. In 2015, this installation was www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/ regular intervals, along 8–10 skewers. set up in the courtyard of the Royal renzo-piano Position the skewers vertically on a Academy, allowing visitors to the table with the marshmallows aligned so Summer Exhibition to interact with the that another batch of skewers can be massive structures. threaded horizontally to form a grid. Shawcross explains: ‘The Greeks Ask the students to collaborate until a considered the tetrahedron to 3-D ‘cloud’ is created from the grids. represent the very essence of matter. Use two tables stacked one on top of In this huge work I have taken this form the other to create a hanging space. as my “brick”, growing these chaotic, To provide a sense of scale, ask the diverging forms that will float above the students to draw or cut out small heads of visitors.’ groups of people from magazines to display beneath the clouds. Patrick Sykes, Conrad Shawcross: The Dappled Light of the Sun. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2017

Resources and materials

A few packets of small marshmallows. Packets of wooden BBQ skewers or spaghetti. Sewing thread for hanging the grids/clouds, masking tape, rulers.

Gallery 5

Mansion

house with his wife and newborn first Key words Questions for students child. It references the miracle of new life and comments on the relationship of humans to the built world. Describing confining space Looking at this drawing, describe the way the architecture as our ‘second skin’, bodies relate to the space around them and habitat Gormley represents the bodies as voids suggest why the artist would have given it the inside a dark and confining space. The mansion title Mansion. restricted limits appear to entomb them mould rather than provide them with comfort How does Gormley use scale to make us think and shelter. negative space about the relationship between the figures and their environment? opaque parallel themes Gormley describes architecture as our ‘second skin’. How does this make us think about the Mansion, 1982. pigment buildings we occupy? Can you think of another Black pigment, linseed oil and charcoal on paper, 84 x 60 cm © the Artist void type of skin that surrounds us?

vulnerability How does Gormley express his personal Measuring almost one metre high, experience (the birth of his first child) in this this drawing was made using thick drawing? Do we relate differently to space black pigment mixed with linseed oil when we experience a big change in our lives? Can you give an example? over charcoal. A large bodyform is It was around the time of this drawing drawn in negative against an opaque that Gormley started to experiment Gormley draws every day and uses his black field, which is set onto a plain with lead body cases. His first was drawings to think about his projects. How do white background. Inside the body is a produced in 1981–82 and shared you use your sketchbooks? What are your smaller figure linked to the larger one its name with another drawing from favourite materials for drawing? by thin lines that connect its eyes, nose, this series, Mould (also on display in ears, hands, feet and genitals to those Gallery 5). The drawings in this group Gormley is interested in the various ways our of the other. were attached to the wall in Gormley’s bodies contain space. What is the connection studio near King’s Cross and were between Mansion and Gormley’s body cases? Drawing has always played an later described by him as ‘a kind of important role in Gormley’s practice. manifesto of my life’s work from then Approaching it separately to sculpture, on’. Mansion and Mould are displayed in his drawings explore parallel themes this exhibition in the context of around and employ a similarly wide range of 60 other drawings – mainly from the media. Mansion is one of a series of 1980s and 1990s – together with a drawings produced in the early 1980s collection of the artist’s workbooks, when Gormley was living in a new which he uses every day. Workbooks, 2017–2019 (detail) © the Artist Related themes and Link Extension for KS4/KS5 curriculum links

Art & Design Sleeping Place, 1974. Plaster and linen, 55 × 91 × 106 cm © the Artist Explore connections with conceptual art and conceptual architecture. Model, 2012. Weathering steel, 502 x 3240 x 1360 cm. Installation views, White Cube Bermondsey, London 2012 © the Design-Technology and Science Artist. Photo: Benjamin Westoby; Courtesty White Cube, London

Explore how architects use scale to solve design problems. Antony Gormley Model, 2002

Related art exam topics The spaces we occupy affect our senses. Sleeping Place most intimate architecture possible’. What would it be like to dwell inside a large, He asked a friend to lie on the floor dark structure shaped like a body? After completing his degree at beneath a linen sheet dipped in plaster Isolation Cambridge university, Gormley spent to re-create the vulnerability he had Model, created by Gormley in 2012, is a mark-making three years in India. When he returned witnessed. 32-metre long sculpture in the shape of a he created Sleeping Place, a piece recumbent body. Viewers are invited to go relationship inspired by the moving memory of Look at Sleeping Place carefully, what inside it and negotiate its 24 individual cells. Most of the journey takes place in the dark, transformation thousands of people he saw sleeping can you tell about the person inside? which makes it essential to use one’s other on the streets wrapped in dhoti, a Can you link this sculpture to Mansion? architecture senses, like sound and touch, to find a way traditional thin cloth wrap. What similarities are there between through it. Gormley provides an opportunity these two works? What are the for us to investigate how our own body Gormley was interested in the fact differences? reacts as we move through another body that the dhoti cloth was the only and have to negotiate some restricting thing separating each person from How does Gormley make us think spaces. their environment. Gormley thought about our relationship to architecture? the cloth became in effect their What kind of environment makes you Research the work Model and compare it dwelling, describing the cloth as ‘the feel secure? Or vulnerable? Draw the to Mansion. Consider the theme of scale and the relationships between the two figure inside the sheet. Think about the figures. What does the large installation style of drawing and the mateirals you make us feel about the spaces around will use. What did you notice about the us? How do we relate to time? Can our way the fabric encases the body? experiences change our perception of time and space?

Classroom activity Further Research Useful links Habitat

The word habitat describes the natural Conceptual architecture suggests Architecture practice home or environment of an animal, a different kind of building to that DS+R plant or other organism. produced with an ‘architect as a dsrny.com master-builder’ and where the guiding As well as offering us security, human principles are craft and construction. Building habitats are diverse, unique and multi- Instead, conceptual architecture follows Blur Building, Yverdon-les-Bains, functional. the principle that architecture can Switzerland, 2002 by DSR+R shape society through structures that dsrny.com/project/blur-building Where do you feel secure? Do you make us think about our relationship to prefer an empty space or a crowded the environment. one? How does your favourite environment feel? Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio were the 2019 Royal Academy Use large pieces of paper, wide architecture prize winners. Their brushes (or sponges) and black ink to architecture practice DS+R has draw your habitat, reflecting on scale created many innovative buildings, and your relationship with the space structures and installations including around you. Perhaps draw a place you Blur Building, 2002, a pavilion built of like to study or the place you call home. fog.

Try to reflect the physical environment Diller and Scofidio work with artists, you create for yourself (such as the designers and researchers, creating way you arrange your bedroom or platforms to understand the world we study space) but also consider how to inhabit and working towards shaping a show what it feels like to be in those better one. spaces. Research conceptual architecture, then design a structure that would express or promote your own idea. Resources and materials

A1 or A0 paper, large brushes (or sponges attached to sticks), black ink

Gallery 6

Lost Horizon I

entire body in cling film followed by Key words Questions for students plaster and scrim (a strong, coarse fabric) mixed with water. Creating the casts was a very physical process. He beaten lead Look at the figures and imagine yourself in was helped by two assistants (one of their place. How does the artist make us think comprised whom was his wife, the painter Vicken about the space around us? Parsons) and had to hold himself in dispersed challenging poses for up to an hour Why did the artist use his own body to create effortlessly and a half. a universal bodyform? What alternatives would extracted you choose to use? In the early years, Gormley used the Lost Horizon I, 2008. geometric confines 24 cast iron bodyforms, each 189 x 53 x 29 cm. casts to make bodyforms from beaten Looking at all 24 bodyforms, can you see any Installation view, ‘Antony Gormley’, Royal Academy of lead, transitioning to the heavier and manifestation differences between them? Gormley created Arts, London, 21 September to 3 December 2019. more robust medium of iron in the late them over a period of ten years, a long time PinchukArtCentre, Kiev, Ukraine © the Artist. Photo: molten iron Oak Taylor-Smith 1980s. To cast the iron bodyforms, for the human body. Can you detect any the plaster moulds were used to plasterboard differences that indicate the process of aging? create further moulds in sand, into reinforcement Lost Horizon I is comprised of cast-iron which molten iron was poured and The forms are positioned at different angles, bodyforms that stand upright, but are then extracted. Traces of cling film, robust how does this change our interaction with presented at different angles. Five of sand, the seams of the mould and the them? the 24 bodies ‘stand’ on the ceiling, round fixings from where the cooled scrim while 19 other bodies are dispersed on iron cast has been detached from its steel What kind of experience did the artist have to the floor and walls. Each cast weighs support, are all left visible in the final undergo to create these forms? 630 kg, around ten times heavier than work. Evidently created as multiples as the weight of an average male of the opposed to being individually hand- How do you feel when you are surrounded same height. Although the figures give crafted, the bodies represent our by so many forms made of heavy iron? Does the illusion that they are effortlessly shared human experience. it make a difference that they are human- placed on the ceiling and walls, they are shaped? Is it a comfortable feeling? Or not? in fact fixed via a complex method of With the casts placed at different reinforcement made from steel plates angles within the geometric confines and pins set behind the plasterboard of the gallery, viewers are made aware surfaces. of their own physical occupation of space. Following Event Horizon, 2007, These iron bodyforms are created from Jorge Lewinski, Work in progress, 1995, casting in which Gormley placed standing at Bellenden Road studio, Peckham, London © six plaster casts taken of Gormley’s figures on top of buildings across The Lewinski Archive at Chatsworth / Bridgeman Images; Antony Gormley, Event Horizon, 2007. own body over ten years. He started London, he describes Lost Horizon I as 27 fibreglass and 4 cast iron bodyforms, each casting himself in plaster in the early 189 × 53 × 29 cm. Installation views, ‘Antony a manifestation of the same concept Gormley: Blind Light’, Hayward Gallery, London, 1980s, which involves covering his within an interior space. 2007. © the Artist. Photo: Richard Bryant, courtesy of the Hayward Gallery, London Related themes and Link Extension for KS4/KS5 curriculum links

Art & Design ‘Antony Gormley: Still Standing’. Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) Installation views, The State Hermitage Museum, La Place, 1948 St Petersburg, 2011–12. Photograph by Compare and contrast with the work of Yuri Molodkovets. La Place or Piazza was created by the artists such as Alberto Giacometti. Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti in 1948. It shows five thin figures – four men walking Design-Technology and Science and one standing woman. Although these emaciated individuals are in close Consider the process of casting and proximity, they appear unable or unwilling welding. to connect with one another. Through these sculptures, Giacometti gives tangible Learn about weight, mass, balance. expression to universal feelings of what it is like to be alive in a world of isolation and separation. Still Standing, 2012 monuments? Do you think they Giacometti said that the way people move communicate power? How does Related art exam topics in the street, constantly re-arranging Still Standing was an installation of ancient crafmanship contrast with themselves into ‘living compositions’, was seventeen solid iron forms placed by Gormley’s oxidised iron figures? Can the inspiration behind pieces like La Place. Antony Gormley at the Hermitage you think of other places where you force Museum in St Peterburg in Russia. In can look at classical sculpures? Why do Look carefully at each figure. How do spaces another gallery, Gormley rearranged we keep them in museums? they relate to one another? Can you see a the museum’s Greek statues (which difference between the one female figure materials usually represent power and beauty). and the others? landmark Bringing them down from their usually elevated positions to stand on the floor The slab these figures are standing on is assembled only 65 cm long. How might the scale of entirely changed the experience for this work affect the way we interact with it? out of place visitors. This was the first time any living artist has rearranged these traditional Antony Gormley said about La Place, galleries. ‘Giacometti’s obsession was in dealing with how space and distance and the Still Standing questions the role of act of looking are inseparable from the museums in our collective experience thing that is looked at.’ Can you explain his and allows us to reconsider the ways statement? When looking at Gormley’s Lost we interact with works of art. How Horizon l or at La Place, what part do we, do you relate to classical sculpture, the viewers, play? or to statues displayed on raised Classroom activity Further Research Useful links Crowd

What is a museum? What makes Santiago Calatrava Building a gallery different to a corridor with Milwaukee Art Museum, USA, classrooms? How would you organise The architect and artist Santiago 1994–2001 by Santiago Calatrava a collection of forms in a given space? Calatrava uses the shape of the human calatrava.com/projects/milwaukee-art- How would you ensure that the visitors figure to express ideas about space. museum.html would want to respond to the exhibits? Calatrava considers architecture to be Where would you start? the highest form of art and exhibits Artwork sculptures and paintings alongside his La Place (Piazza), 1947–48 Use cardboard boxes as plinths and architectural models. by Alberto Giacometti ask students to place objects of their www.guggenheim.org/artwork/1426 choice on them, having considered the When designing a bridge, a building height, size and angle of the plinths in or any structure with specific spatial Podcast relation to their object/s. The objects constraints, Calatrava aims to introduce Artist Antony Gormley explores Alberto could be pottery, a still-life assemblage, a ‘sense of movement’ by considering Giacometti’s La Place (15 mins) found objects, recycled items, or even shapes which remind us of the natural www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00l13pr 3-D pieces made especially for their world. installation. Ask students to re-arrange Articles the classroom space, move tables, pile Research his paintings, sculpture Tate Modern director Frances Morris the boxes, hang some of the objects and architecture and create a set of interviews Antony Gormley and consider the ‘entrance’ to their watercolour drawings for a proposed www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/alberto- installation. Take photographs and ask pavilion or similar structure. giacometti-1159/interview/antony- students to sketch the arrangements, gormley-on-alberto-giacometti and discuss how the organisation of the space contributed to the interaction. Antony Gormley ‘Still Standing: A Contemporary Intervention in the Classical Collection’ at the New Resources and materials Hermitage museum in St Petersburg, Russia Cardboard boxes, masking-tape, a whitecube.com/news/news_and_ variety of different objects, camera, events/antony_gormley_at_the_new_ paper, drawing materials. hermitage_st_petersburg Central Hall

Body Fruit

This series of works is the result Key words Questions for students of Gormley’s life-long concern with natural growth and the expansion of organic matter. Recalling cells, bulbs amorphous When looking at the works Body and Fruit, what or cocoons, these silent objects are at do their shapes remind you of? Does the rust clasped once industrial and organic, still and on the surface make a difference to how you energetic, representative of both the cosmos understand them? How? beginning and the end. Their rusted elemental iron surface reminds us that the Gormley describes Body and Fruit as ‘contained objects are formed of an elemental, expansion explosions or an expanding universe’. How living substance. Capturing the body do we relate to the works once we have momumental Body and Fruit, 1991/93. in both time and space, Body and understood how the shapes were formed? Cast iron and air, 233 × 265 × 226 cm (Body), Fruit hover in the centre of the Main spokes 110.7 × 129.5 × 122.5 cm (Fruit). Installation view, Galleries like planets around which we How does the way the two sculptures are ‘Antony Gormley’, Royal Academy of Arts, London, substance 21September to 3 December 2019 © the Artist. must navigate. When we are within suspended from the ceiling affect their impact Photo: Oak Taylor-Smith their immediate environment, they also on the space? Can you suggest how both the encourage us to consider our own materials and the work titles interact to make Body and Fruit are part of the place within the wider cosmos. us think about space? Expansion Works series that Gormley started making in 1990. Weighing Body and Fruit are shapes derived In what ways are we aware of the space six and two tonnes respectively, and from the human form. The process by around us when we are swimming, running or suspended just inches from the ground, which they were made is integral to the walking against a wind? How do you think a these monumental, amorphous shapes meaning of the works. Through them, sculpture could express one of these feelings? were created by expanding the form Gormley asks: what is left when we are of a human body. Like Land, Sea without our physical appearance? and Air I, the works are the result of wrapping an object – in this case, a structure expanded from the mould of a body in a tightly-held foetal position.

However, rather than repeating the wrapping process until he reached an abstract form, Gormley cast the body in position, then fixed wooden spokes of a consistent length to the defining points of the cast. These were then connected to create a continuous surface and it was subsequently cast in iron (see Still Leaping). Still Leaping, 1994. Work in progress. Bellenden Road Studio, Peckham, London © the Artist Related themes and Link Extension for KS4/KS5 curriculum links

Art & Design Alicja Kwade ParaPivot Explore connections with art movements such as Minimalism and Weight and mass are brought to our Abstract Art. attention in works such as Body and Fruit. ParaPivot is an installation created recently by the artist Alicja Kwade for the roof of Design-Technology and Science the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) in New York. The sculpture of the solar Explore the ways designers consider system is designed to question our place in weight, volume and mass in their work. the universe and consider our relationship to space and time.

The materials stone and steel are important Still Running, 1990–93, and How does Gormley question the parts of this installation. Compare it to Body Related art exam topics Exercise between boundaries of these pieces? How and Fruit and consider your own possible Blood and Earth, 1979–81 did he turn the drawing into a three responses to the topic of outer space, or dimentional object? How does Gormley the solar system. How would you define spaces outer space in relation to your own body? Similar to Body and Fruit is a sculpture redefine the volume of the body? What materials would you use? wrap called Still Running, which Gormley has described as an attempt to translate materials the drawing Exercise Between Blood and Earth (exhibited in Room 2) into three dimensions. The drawing shows the silhouette of a running man surrounded by concentric lines which form an egg-like shape. Still Running and Exercise between Blood and Earth both explore the ‘expansion’ of a Still Running, 1990/93 Cast iron and air, 317 x 276 x 148 cm body shape. Describing his Expansion Umedalen Sculpture Foundation, Umea, Sweden Works, Gormley explained that he was [Krister Olsson, Umea, Sweden]. © the artist ‘renegotiating the skin: questioning Photograph by Jan Uvelius, Malmö where things and events begin and Exercise Between Blood and Earth, 2019 (detail). end’. Chalk on wall, Diameter: 1.96m. Installation view, ‘Antony Gormley’, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 21 September to 3 December 2019 © the Artist. Photo: Oak Taylor-Smith Classroom activity of themselves as a starting point and, Further Research Useful links Edges using a ruler, draw lines of equal length radiating outwards from the figure. Ask students to look at Exercise between Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures Endless Column Artwork Blood and Earth and use tracing paper of the human figure have clearly Constantine Brâncuși Alicja Kwade, ParaPivot over their photographs to consider defined outlines. They are relatively www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/ different ‘skins’. They should start with easy to record on paper using a single The sculpture Endless Column by video/collections/modern/alicja- the figure but look for alternatives line. These lines follow the edges and Constantine Brâncuși is located in kwade to a simple outline. Ask students to describe the ‘skin’ of the figure, the Târgu Jiu, a town in Romania. The experiment with different media for boundary between the figure and cast-iron structure consists of 16 units Podcast their ‘expansion’ drawings. the space around it. Antony Gormley and is nearly 30 metres high. It was Listen to Antony Gormley talk rejects this kind of description of the originally intended as a memorial to the about Endless Column figure and instead makes us see and town’s fallen soldiers. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00l0yjc think about the human figure and its boundaries in new and different ways. Resources and materials There are several versions of this structure which Brâncuși created Ask one student to stand, sit on a chair String, masking tape, charcoal, graphite between 1918 and 1938, but most or lie on the floor in the middle of the sticks, A1 paper, camera, tracing paper. famous is the one at Târgu Jiu. Its classroom. Tie or tape string to each position creates a connection between finger of the student, one around the the earth and the sky. The last unit waist and another around the knees. at the top is deliberately incomplete, Ask other students to gently pull out suggesting the possibility of infinite equal lengths of the string to define a expansion. space around the figure. The pieces of string can be tied to furniture, taped Antony Gormley said of this sculpture, to the floor, or simply held by other ‘It displays the idea that a work does students. not have to picture anything. It should simply be a place that can act on you Take photographs from different as an instrument, so in some way you angles and ask the students to draw can feel yourself anew in the world.’ the ‘expansion’ and consider the new boundaries of the body and how it Research the work of Constantine radiates into the space around it. Brâncuși and consider how it may have Students can use the photographs to influenced Gormley in his work. Look continue working on their drawings. into the ideas that both artists have had about space, expansion and infinity. Alternatively, if space is limited, students can use printed photographs Lecture Room

Host

Gormley describes the work as an Key words Questions for students ‘infection of the museum’ as the mix of organic material enters the built environment. expanse Depending on when you visit during the exhibition, this work might smell and look horizon Viewing Host is a sensory experience. different. Can you think of any other materials It appeals to our senses of touch humidity used in artworks that might change over time? (humidity), smell, sight and sound, sensory reminding us that we are subject to Did you expect to see a room full of water and the conditions that surround us. In stagnant mud at this exhibition? How did you react to the same way, Host responds to its seeing it? How does the exhibit contrast with stagnating own environment, reacting over time the rest of your visit to the Royal Academy? to changing light and humidity levels. Host, 2019. As the last work in the exhibition and What is the relationship between water and air Buckinghamshire clay (51° 44’ 52.5” N 0° 38’ 42.6” positioned in direct opposition to the in this installation? How do these elements feel W) and Atlantic seawater, dimensions variable. constructed environment of Matrix inside the gallery? Installation view, ‘Antony Gormley’, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 21 September to 3 December 2019. III, Host presents us with a field of © the Artist. Photo: Oak Taylor-Smith living matter that makes us aware of What is your role in the installation? Are you our own body, of time passing, of the inside or outside it? beginning, and of the end. The horizon Host is a site-specific installation of – something that Gormley repeatedly The gallery becomes a host to water. Why? 32,000 kilograms of red clay mixed returns to in his work – though strictly What do you think the artist wants us to with 25,000 litres of Atlantic seawater. confined between the four gallery experience? It entirely covers the floor of the walls, refers to the infinite potential of second largest of the Royal Academy the mind. How does the artist make us think about the galleries. Visitors are invited to stand relationship between culture (the gallery) and in the doorway to view this expanse of nature (the mixture of mud and water)? stagnating organic matter. How do we relate to organic things when they The power of this work lies in its are no longer in their natural environment? How context. First installed in the Old Jail in do they change? What are the differences? Charleston in the United States (1991), then replicated on two other occasions Antony Gormley describes Host as ‘a changing at the Kunsthalle in Kiel, Germany painting that you can smell and sense, as well (1997) and the Galleria Continua in as see’. Would you describe this installation Beijing, China (2016). Host exists in its work as a painting or a sculpture? How does fourth iteration at the Royal Academy. smell change the experience of looking?

Related themes and Link Extension for KS4/KS5 curriculum links

Art & Design Antony Gormley, Sound II, 188 x 60 45 cm. © the Anya Gallaccio Artist. Installation at Winchester Cathedral. Photo: Preserve ‘Beauty’ Chris Deeney / Alamy Stock Photo Research Land Art. In the installation Preserve ‘Beauty’ by Anya Research the work of the artist Gallaccio, hundreds of red gerbera flowers are pressed between a sheet of glass and Richard Long RA. the wall. Gradually, the blooms decompose, change colour, fall down and rot. The wall Design-Technology and Science becomes dull, covered with mould, and the smell of decomposing flowers slowly fills Consider the construction of the the gallery. installation. Sound ll How would the title Sound ll contribute to the experience of being there? Preserve ‘Beauty’ changes continuously throughout the exhibition. Every visit to the Consider the difficulties of bringing Sound II is an installation in the crypt Sound ll includes a lead cast of the gallery results in a different experience, ‘nature’ indoors.. below Winchester Cathedral. It includes artist’s own body but Host does not. depending on the state of decay. Anya a life-size figure of a man looking down. How might that affect your interaction Gallaccio sees the work as a temporary During rainy months the crypt floods with the two artworks? collaboration between herself, the with rainwater and the figure can be decomposing organic matter and the Related art exam topics seen, partly submerged, holding water viewer. Her work invites us to reflect on in its cupped hands. ideas of ‘place, time, life, decay, death, beauty and renewal’. Consider creating spaces Similarly to Host, in this installation your own installation, bringing nature the built environment of the church, a indoors and observing it as it changes. the elements Record the process with drawings and/or cultural place, is combined with natural photography. weather elements, especially when the crypt is host to rainwater. The presence of materials Gormley’s silent figure transforms the out of place space into a place of contemplation. How does Gormley use the interior of the building in the two works Sound II and Host? How would the presence of water alter the atmosphere.

Classroom activity Further Research Useful links Senses

Create a maquette, a small 3-D model, Roger Hiorns Artwork as a proposal for an installation that will Seizure, 2008 Seizure, 2008 by Roger Hiorns involve the senses. Use model-making ysp.org.uk/openair/seizure materials to construct a simple, three- Hiorns transformed a derelict council dimensional room (based on a possible flat in Southwark, London, into a Sound II, Antony Gormley site) together with a small version of sparkling blue environment of copper www.atlasobscura.com/places/sound- your proposed installation ideally made sulphate crystals. He pumped 75,000 ii-winchester-cathedral to the appropriate scale. Support the litres of liquid copper sulphate into proposals with annotated drawings the empty space to create a strangely Artist which explain your idea and choice of beautiful and somewhat menacing Anya Gallacio materials. crystalline growth all over the walls, www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/anya- floor and ceiling. The experience of gallaccio-2658 visiting the installation created new and Resources and materials unusual sensations for visitors as they were transported into this fragile and Model-making card, scale-rulers, luminous space. masking tape, safety knives, sewing pins, thread, drawing paper and a range The installation has been transferred of materials such as spices, tea leaves to Yorkshire Sculpture Park where it is (herbal are best) and other dry fragrant now on public display. Follow the link materials such as crushed pieces of (right) to watch the film and find out pot-pourri. about the construction of the work, and compare this to how Gormley made his Host work. What similarities can you see? How do Hiorns and Gormley create interactions between a space and the viewer?

Have any feedback about this resource? roy.ac/teachers

Email it to studentgroups@ royalacademy.org.uk Quotes throughout this resource are taken from Antony Gormley and Mark Holborn, Antony Gormley On Sculpture, London: Thames and Hudson, 2015

Antony Gormley

Lead Supporter

Writer Lucy Chiswell Teacher Consultant and Writer

Orly Smetana Generously supported by Generously supported by Editor Zoë Smith