Gormley on Art
Contemporary art is not my specialty. I do, however, keep my eyes open and I can't help getting the sense that many prominent artists today practice every painter paints himself in one way or another. The British sculptor, Anthony Gormley (1950-), spent several years studying Buddhism in the 1970's so his attitude to art naturally echoes that of past masters. Buddhism practices what is hidden in other religions though even in Buddhism there are different levels of understanding. Buddhism, like true art in the West, teaches that exterior reality is an illusion and that to reach nirvana (called heaven, gnosis or wisdom elsewhere), you must turn inward to study your own mind.
Many of Gormley's works are based on moulds of his own body. This is what he said to The Art Newspaper:
"I take myself as an example of the common human condition and I don’t think of my body as a particularly special example. It’s just what I’ve got but it’s also the only bit of the material world that I can work on from the inside… . I’m trying to make an account of what it feels like to live on the other side of appearance so, as I speak to you, I’m aware that you are the recipient of my appearance as I am of yours…I am behind my face and you are behind yours. I’m trying to articulate that space of being at the other side of appearance. So on one level because I use my own body it’s highly particular but it’s a commonly experienced subjective space of being inside the body. I don’t like it when people say these [his sculptures] are Everymen because they are not symbolic in that sense. They do come from a real body at a real time in a real place and yet they are also, I hope, open enough - because in a way the body doesn’t matter - to be anybody or to call upon the empathy of anybody."
To hear the whole interview, click here.
Posted 29 May 2011: Gormley, AnthonyContemporary ArtTheory
The EPPH Blog features issues and commentary.
Reader Comments