Sean Kelly is delighted to announce Antony Gormley's public installation STAND, featuring ten cast iron 'Blockwork' sculptures placed at regular intervals across the East Terrace of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Continuing his critical engagement of the human body, Gormley describes the ten individual sculptures as standing stones that act as markers in space. The artist continues:
This exhibition is incomplete without the subjective witness of the citizen: each work in its different
way calls on him or her to simultaneously project and recognise internal affinities in the attitude
carried by the block piles... This is an exciting opportunity to see what sculpture can make us think
and feel. What can it do to and for us? Can it have a revelatory or diagnostic function? Can it work
on us to recognize our true selves and allow collective space to again be a space in which personal
truth can arise?
"We are delighted to present this remarkable installation in Philadelphia," said Museum Director Timothy Rub. "Antony Gormley is, simply put, an extraordinary artist whose work has reimagined social engagement, and extended and given new meaning to an age-old tradition: the representation of the human figure. This installation, in practice as well as concept, will also enable us to fulfill in a curatorial sense one of the key goals of our strategic plan—engaging visitors by moving out into the community beyond the four walls of the Museum and activating the remarkable civic spaces around it."
Perched high on the Museum’s Rocky steps, ten cast-iron ”blockwork” sculptures by British artist Antony Gormley bring art outside, releasing it into the city’s shared space. In these metal bodies, each over ten feet tall, Gormley has replaced anatomy with the language of architecture, using cantilevers, propping, and pier-and-lintel construction, the interplay of masses creating the balance of form and feeling. These are sculptures, not statues—less heroic or idealized, more material and real. STAND offers an opportunity to reflect on our status as urban animals, our common ground with the artworks, and how context influences our thinking.
About the Artist
Born in London in 1950, Antony Gormley has had a number of solo shows at venues around the world, including Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, England (2018); the Long Museum, Shanghai (2017); the National Portrait Gallery, London (2016); Forte di Belvedere, Florence, Italy (2015); Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland (2014); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (2012); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia (2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2010); Hayward Gallery, London (2007); Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Germany; Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (1993); and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, Denmark (1989). He has also participated in major group shows such as the Venice Biennale and Documenta 8, Kassel, Germany.
Major public works include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England); Another Place (Crosby Beach, England); Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands); and Chord (MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts).
Gormley won the Turner Prize in 1994 and has been a member of the Royal Academy since 2003. He was made an Officer of the British Empire in 1997 and knighted in 2014.

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