Antony Gormley - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Tuesday, October 12, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    White Cube, London

  • Catalogue Essay

    “Making sculpture stems from a need to leave a trace of existence, but there is an even greater need to challenge existence itself with mute objects that look back at us and question our materiality with their own.” (The artist, in Michael Mack, ed., Antony Gormley, Göttingen, 2007, p. 9)
     
    Throughout his artistic career, Antony Gormley has used his own physical form to explore the idea of the human body as a site of experience. Through this seemingly personal investigation, he tackles universal experience, encouraging those who see his work in both private and public spaces to examine their own place as a human being in the world. His sculpture is influenced by the ideas of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty who developed a new understanding of bodily perception and space. This specific lot, Sublimate XVI, is one of many sculptures in a series of Block Works that divide the body into a sequence of steel blocks, so creating a dynamic between space and mass. In this series, Gormley deconstructs the human form to their essential blocks before reconstructing it in an architectonic manner. Sublimate XVI does not require the viewer to merely gaze and admire the relationships between the angles of the block work, but forces them to recompose the shape in their mind. The viewer is obliged to engage in their own spatial perception and explore a deeper relation between themselves and the worldaround them.
     
     “The sculptures depend on there being a tension between the clarityof the steel blocks and a sense of exposure at the edge of the work, light and space seem to eat away at the embodied core.” (The artist, in Richard Noble, Antony Gormley, Germany, 2007, p. 447)
     
     “The sculptures depend on there being a tension between the clarity of the steel blocks and a sense of exposure at the edge of the work, light and space seem to eat away at the embodied core.” (Antony Gormley quoted in Richard Noble, Antony Gormley, Germany, 2007, p 447)
     
    "Making sculpture stems from a need to leave a trace of existence, but there is an even greater need to challenge existence itself with mute objects that look back at us and question our materiality with their own." (Antony Gormley cited in: Michael Mack, (ed.), Antony Gormley, Göttingen 2007, p. 9)

PROPERTY FROM THE KIT FINANCE COLLECTION

12

Sublimate XVI

2008
Bright mild welded steel blocks.
 

194 x 47 x 28 cm (76 3/8 x 18 1/2 x 11 in).

Estimate
£200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠

Sold for £277,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

13 October 2010
London