ANTONY GORMLEY | Building 6-10

each inscribed with artist's initial undersideExecuted in 2015

White Cube
Acquired by the present owner from the above

These works investigate the human condition using the syntax of urban architecture. They originate from two recent series, Station and Proppers, where we evolved ways of dividing the body into horizontal layers at points that allowed the maximum feel. The idea was to treat the life-size body as a high-rise building, to consider it as both the most open of skeletons and as a closed mass. Building VI replicates the cast concrete columns and floors that now characterise the most contemporary tower blocks, like the ones that are popping up around my studio and all over London. The penultimate, Building X, uses massive walls placed orthogonally to each other to achieve the same effect. Building VIII uses a combination of prop and block, and Build VII translates the language of Building VI into a more classic pier and lintel construction. Broadly speaking, all five works use the fundamentals of compressive architecture – stacking, propping and cantilever – as their primary language. All of the works convey vulnerability, interrogating the ambition of architecture to produce a stable world, with the threat of collapse in the manner of a house of cards.

Antony Gormley