Off the scale

Antony Gormley's towering, weather-worn sculptures made him world-famous. Now, with two new works he contemplates the very essence of space and time

- Claire Armitstead

A ANTONY GORMLEY HAS HURT HIS KNEE, WHICH IS A PAIN IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE. He's due in Italy in a few days, to install the second of two new shows, and time is too short to be hopping around on crutches. His office is up a flight of external stairs, which are made of metal and get slippery in the rain, so he won't be coming down again today. Though his assistant apologises that the huge warehouse studio complex downstairs is empty, it doesn't appearso. Large metal figures, wrapped in plastic, hang from the beams like giant, conceptual bats. In a side room, specialist packers are constructing crates round other pieces, which are about to be shipped off here, there, and everywhere. Outside, a couple of cast-iron figures stand in the drizzle, gathering the rust that will be part of their personality. Isn't there a risk they'll get stolen? Gormley laughs, and points out that thieves would have to come with some serious heavy-lifting equipment.

The shows, in Venice and in the Tuscan hill town of San Gimignano, will display the little and large of one of the UK's most industrious sculptors, a knight of the realm, beloved for public works such as the Angel of the North at Gateshead and Another Place, the 100 figures that have stood on Crosby beach in Merseyside since 2005. But those who feel they know him, because they have been seeing works based on casts of his body for so long, may find themselves perplexed by work that is altogether more theoretical.