Today we go #IntheArchive to revisit Antony Gormley's exhibition STAND, 2019, a public artwork, which was on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art January 24 - June 16, 2019.
STAND comprised an installation of ten monumental cast iron ‘Blockwork’ sculptures placed at regular intervals across the East Terrace of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, overlooking historic Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the city below. Continuing his critical engagement of the human body, Gormley described the ten-foot-high individual sculptures with titles including Hope, Assuage, Lull, Powder, Rate and Assay, amongst others, as standing stones that act as markers in space.
Speaking about the installation at the time Gormley stated, “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 recognize 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?”
Images: Antony Gormley, STAND, 2019, Installation view, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA, USA, Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art #AntonyGormley