THE 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley is standing in the central hall of his ancestral home, studying the flagged floor. Next to him is the towering form of Sir Antony Gormley, who is overseeing the installation of 100 life-size iron figures for Time Horizon at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, which opens to the public on April 21. They are discussing the placement of one of the sculptures close to where they stand. It will only be visible from the waist up and, to achieve this, they must cut a hole in the floor. ‘I am slightly apprehensive,’ says Lord Cholmondeley with a smile, but he seems more excited than worried. For he is well known for commissioning sculptures by the world’s leading artists—from Dame Rachel Whiteread to James Turrell—and, although Sir Antony’s is the largest work to date to be installed at Houghton Hall, the Marquess seems genuinely delighted by the challenge.
Sir Antony is known for his rigorous explor- ation of what it means to be a body in space. Since the early 1980s, he has been using his own form as ‘forensic evidence of a moment of lived human time’, casting it standing, sitting, crouching and sleeping. His body sprouted wings for The Angel of the North and endures the sea’s relentless ebb and flow in Another Place on Liverpool’s Crosby Beach. It has been reduced to cuboids in his most recent public sculpture, True, for Alan Turing, in Cambridge, and transformed into near-absence in Quantum Cloud at London’s O2 Arena. Yet, although Sir Antony always uses his own body as the base for his work, his figures speak to us all about the human condition and our own place in the world.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin March 27, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin March 27, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds