Antony Gormley exhibition opens at Kettle’s Yard
Renowned sculptor and Honorary Fellow, Sir Antony Gormley, has become the first solo artist to exhibit in the new galleries of Kettle’s Yard with the opening of ‘SUBJECT’, running from now until 27 August.
Gormley’s site-specific installation ambitiously pushes and tests the boundaries of the new spaces within Kettle’s Yard, which reopened to the public in February following a two-year, multi-million pound redevelopment. SUBJECT includes both new work and works not previously exhibited in the UK.
Taking as its basis the ‘coordinate’ as a means of measurement of space and of the body as space, ‘SUBJECT’ is conceived as a site-specific installation that will occupy the whole site, including both galleries, the Learning Studio and the Research Space.
Andrew Nairne, Director of Kettle’s Yard, said: “We are thrilled that Antony Gormley, one of the most renowned artists of our time, has the first solo exhibition in the new galleries and spaces at Kettle’s Yard.
“SUBJECT’, designed specifically for Kettle’s Yard and Jamie Fobert’s architecture, offers a series of physical and metaphysical encounters, exploring our relationship to both space and our sense of self.”
The exhibition continues Gormley’s fundamental investigations into the relationships between the human body and space. Conceived as an intervention which breaches the walls of the exhibition galleries, the installation will highlight some of Gormley’s key concerns over the past 40 years. The works consider how sculpture can activate both the space that it occupies and the body of the viewer.
Antony Gormley said: “Both in the demands that it makes of the viewer and in the way that this exhibition uses the spaces of the gallery, the show begs the question as to where the subject of art can be found – I am proposing that it is rooted most powerfully in the imaginative engagement and ultimately the memory of the viewer. The wager of this show is that ‘subject’ has transferred from object to experience.”
Gormley’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the UK and internationally with exhibitions at institutions such as the Long Museum, Shanghai (2017); National Portrait Gallery, London (2016); Forte di Belvedere, Florence (2015); The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2011); Hayward Gallery, London (2007) and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (1989).
Permanent public art works by the artist include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England), Another Place (Crosby Beach, England), Inside Australia (Lake Ballard, Western Australia), Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands) and Chord (MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA).
Gormley's work also featured in the College's 2009 Sculpture in the Close exhibition. The work, also entitled Sculpture in the Close, deployed 19 figures in arrangements that recalled the Event Horizon installations in London and Rotterdam. One figure remains in the College's permanent collection, on prominent display in the Quincentenary Library.
Gormley was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, the South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999, the Bernhard Heiliger Award for Sculpture in 2007, the Obayashi Prize in 2012 and the Praemium Imperiale in 2013.
In 1997 he was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) and was made a knight in the New Year’s Honours list in 2014. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, an Honorary Doctor of the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity and s, Cambridge. Gormley has been a Royal Academician since 2003.
SUBJECT runs from May 22-August 27. Entry is free. Visit for further details.
