Antony Gormley

One and Other

 

Antony Gormley proposes that the fourth plinth is occupied 24 hours a day by members of the public who have volunteered to stand on it for an hour at a time.

The registration process for volunteers will be announced in due course, so you are advised to continue to check this website for further details on how to take part.

‘Through elevation onto the plinth and removal from common ground’, explains Gormley, ‘the subjective living body becomes both representation and representative, encouraging consideration of diversity, vulnerability and the individual in contemporary society’. This is particularly pertinent in the context of Trafalgar Square with its military statues honouring specific individuals.

Biography

Antony Gormley was born in London and read archaeology, anthropology and art history at Trinity College, Cambridge (1968-1971). He studied at the Central School of Art, London (1974-1975); Goldsmith’s School of Art (1975-1977) and Slade School of Fine Art (1977-1979). He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1995. 

Gormley’s work is concerned with the body as a place of memory and transformation, and a vehicle for the exploration of self and other in space. He works with a variety of materials including lead, terracotta, concrete, iron and steel. Since the late 1980s, Gormley has undertaken numerous public sculpture commissions and has work sited in Derry, Birmingham, Stavanger and Kassel amongst others. His prolific public commissions include what has now become a famous landmark in the north-east of England, The Angel of the North. The first major London exhibition of his work was on show at the Hayward Gallery earlier this year.