Antony Gormley: Model – art for all the family?

Associated media

28 November 2012 – 10 February 2013

Looking for something to do in London over the holiday?

At White Cube Bermondsey, until 10 February 2013, Antony Gormley’s current body of work ‘Model’ is on display. The largest piece, a monolithic human figure, Model (which lends it name for the title of the exhibition), is a site-specific work of 24 pieces, made in response to the vast space of South Galleries II. Made from 100 tons of Corten steel, it is a mysterious labyrinth – children will love it – which has at its heart the body as a work of architecture.

At no time can one view the exterior steel body as a whole piece, except in ‘The Model Room’ where smaller to scale models of the work are on display. Gormley’s invitation – with a proviso that it is not for the faint-hearted or claustrophobic – is to step inside the steel body, entering at the foot, to explore the interconnected rooms; the body within its shell. Dark floor level openings and narrow corridors will challenge the fit and the curious; and for the thinker, the artist’s parallel symbolism of the ‘dark interior of the human body’, and Vitruvian theory on architecture.

Beyond this gallery White Cube’s central corridor displays Gormley’s new sculptures, each an interconnection with Model, variations on the theme of the architecture of the body, at times bordering on an abstract concept of it. The side galleries show smaller sculptures, Gormley’s human jigsaws in cast iron, which reveal his infinite interest in form, space and architecture. Not to be missed is The Model Room, which houses the artists working models, a kind of workshop of ideas that come together to form the sculptures on exhibition. Fabulous.

White Cube
144–152 Bermondsey Street
London SE1 3TQ

tel. 020 7930 5373 

Open: Tuesday–Saturday 10a.m.–6p.m. Sunday 12–6p.m.

Reporting byRosalind Ormiston