Recipient of the 1994 Turner Prize, Antony Gormley is an internationally acclaimed British artist who has revitalized the human figure in sculpture. Often cast from his own body, his lead and iron figures are sites for the exploration of states of being. Generating controversy and passion, Gormley’s public sculptures raise key issues about the relation between art, society and the environment. In the late 1990s his investigation of architectural and social space has evolved into ambitious site-specific projects and monuments such as The Angel of the North (1998) and Quantum Cloud (2000).
Irish curator John Hutchinson surveys the artist’s work. Professor Ernst Gombrich discusses with Gormley his approach to the human figure. Slovenian author Lela B Njatin weaves a poetic narrative around her encounter with Field (1990-93). The Artist’s Choice is a passage from St Augustine’s Confessions. Antony Gormley’s writings include interviews and artist’s statements. This revised, expanded second edition includes over fifty additional pages documenting Gormley’s work from 1995 to 2000. Recent artist’s writings accompany a re-evaluation of Gormley’s art-historical position and survey of recent work by American art historian W J T Mitchell.