Spiral into the World of Antony Gormley at National Gallery Singapore
Visitors to National Gallery Singapore can look forward to a unique and participatory experience through the exhibition Antony Gormley. On display from 6 August 2021 to 30 October 2022, the exhibition features the new large-scale installation Horizon Field Singapore (2021)as part of the Gallery’s annual Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission Series. For the first time, this year’s commissioned work is complemented by three further sculptures that together trace four decades of Gormley’s practice: Sense (1991), Close V (1998), and Ferment (2007). Placed at key locations throughout the Gallery, these works form a sequence of what the artist calls “acupuncture points” within the architecture, activating their surroundings and provoking connections with their audience.
The exhibition offers an introduction to the artist’s extensive body of work, which draws on a range of traditions and ideas including Buddhist sculpture and philosophy, Minimalism, and quantum physics. Many of Gormley’s works encourage viewers to focus their attention on their own movement and perception in relation to the surrounding space. In the new commission, Horizon Field Singapore, visitors can step into a matrix of intersecting metal and take part in a spatial experience that continually shifts as they walk through it. This work expands Gormley’s approach to sculpture as a collaborative, ongoing dialogue between the artist, the object and the audience.
Dr Eugene Tan, Director of National Gallery Singapore said, “We are delighted to partner with Antony Gormley for this landmark exhibition. Gormley is the first international artist who was born or lives outside Asia to be featured in the Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission series, and we’re excited to see this engagement with the Roof Garden Gallery continue with his work in the Singapore context, after Asian Field (2005) and Drift (2009). Horizon Field Singapore furthers Gormley’s exploration of space through its relations with people, and speaks to the region’s complex cultures and histories in its situatedness. By expanding this commission to include the artist’s earlier works, this exhibition exemplifies our commitment to connect our publics through art and its inspiring possibilities. Antony Gormley is an opportunity to further nurture our publics’ interest in art through this innovative, exciting and memorable experience.”
Antony Gormley said, “There's a bit of dance here in Horizon Field Singapore: the circles could be hula hoops; it invites you to become aware of your more animal nature, to feel it... Walter Pater said that all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music – so it is something that exists outside of you, but also inside you, and in a way, possesses you. Horizon Field Singapore doesn't have anything to show, it doesn't have anything to tell. It is an invitation to feel your own life through the context that it gives you.”
Navigating Antony Gormley
Horizon Field Singapore spans the Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Gallery, acting as a continually mutating spatial frame for visitors to walk through and observe the work from within. Its title alludes to the horizon as the final limit of human perception, as an individual’s spatial and visual experience of the horizon shifts with their every move. Standing at almost 5m tall, Horizon Field Singapore offers a visceral experience fully realised through participation. The large-scale installation creates an environment for individual explorations, set against the historic Civic District skyscape.
Providing context for this new workare three of Gormley’s earlier sculptures: Sense (1991), Close V (1998), and Ferment (2007). In different ways, each of these sculptures questions the relationship between the human body and space. These works are exhibited throughout the Gallery’s iconic buildings, alongside important works of art from Singapore and Southeast Asia.
Stationed at the Gallery’s UOB City Hall Courtyard, Close V (1998) welcomes the Gallery’s visitors from the Coleman Street Entrance. This life-sized solid iron sculpture is cast from the artist’s body, and lies face-down on the floor. The sculpture’s position in the Gallery’s busy entrance encourages visitors to circle around it, drawing attention to ideas such as stillness and movement, lightness and gravity, and permanence and change.
Sense (1991) awaits visitors at Level 3 of the Supreme Court Wing, Southeast Asia Gallery. In this work, Gormley presents the human form as an empty void, its negative space compressed within a concrete cube. The sculpture explores Gormley’s conception of the human body as an architectural unit (the dimensions of the block are at the smallest scale that a crouching body can occupy) by using a material commonly used in construction. The work also suggests a continuity between the interior of the body – our consciousness – and the space around us – the cosmos.
Gormley’s exploration of quantum physics is evident in Ferment (2007), which hangs above the imperial staircases at the Gallery’s Supreme Court Foyer. Inspired by the structure of foaming bubbles, the work consists of geometric polygonal shapes made from stainless steel bars that suggest a human figure seemingly emerging from or disappearing into the matrix. Ferment challenges the solid form of traditional sculpture by presenting the human body as a dynamic energy field, its suspension providing a sense of weightlessness.
Complementing the exhibition is a range of interdisciplinary programmes throughout its duration, including talks, tours, discussions and performances, such as Resonates With: Fauxe, a series of solo piano improvisations inspired by Gormley’s sculptures performed by Singaporean producer, pianist, and improviser Fauxe.
The Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission series invites one leading international artist each year to present a site-specific work that reflects upon Southeast Asia’s rich cultural heritage and complex histories from a contemporary perspective. Previous artists commissioned for the series include Danh Vo, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Charles Lim Yi Yong, and Cao Fei. The Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission is made possible through a gift by
Far East Organization.
The three Gormley sculptures are proudly supported by our Strategic Partner, Cultural Matching Fund and our Exhibition Patrons, Pierre & Bolor Lorinet.
Admission to Antony Gormley is free. For more information, please visit: https://www.nationalgallery.sg/exhibition/antony-gormley. Media assets are accessible via this link. Please refer to the downloadable PDF version of the release to view the artist’s biography in Annex A. Descriptions of the artworks are available in Annex B.