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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE american Collection ANTONY GORMLEY (b. 1951) TOTAL STRANGER initialed, nu...

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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE american Collection ANTONY GORMLEY (b. 1951) TOTAL STRANGER initialed, nu...
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE
american Collection
ANTONY GORMLEY
(b. 1951)
TOTAL STRANGER
initialed, numbered, inscribed and dated "1996"
on the underside of right foot
cast iron
76 x 22 x 12 in. (193 x 55.9 x 30.5 cm)
executed in 1996
ESTIMATE: $60,000-80,000

PROVENANCE
White Cube, LONDON

EXHIBITED
COLOGNE, Kölnischer Kunstverein, ANTONY GORMLEY: TOTAL STRANGERS, February 28-April 13, 1997 (another example exhibited; illustrated)

LITERATURE
U. Kittelmann and B. Katz, eds., ANTONY GORMLEY: TOTAL STRANGERS, OSTFILDERN-RUIT, 1999, n.p. (illustrated)
J. Hutchinson, E.H. Gombrich, L.B. Njatin and W.J.T. Mitchell, eds., ANTONY GORMLEY, LONDON, 2000, p. 185 (illustrated)
In the creation of TOTAL STRANGER, Antony Gormley portrays his whole body as a life mask, the self-portrait, which ultimately monumentalizes the human form in the static, standing figure and as a conduit for silent communication. The shaping tool is not the hand but the artist's entire body, and it works from within matter, holding open a space within it rather than sculpting away material from outside. Gormley's sculptures bring the viewer's attention back onto a specific object, this body understood as a place, a space where someone has lived. Gormley states that "the body is language before language. When made still in sculpture it can be a witness to life" (A. Gormley, ANTONY GORMLEY, TOTAL STRANGERS, COLOGNE, 1997, pp. 21-22).
Gormley's TOTAL STRANGER is conceived of a larger-based project of six individual sculptures, which the artist placed both inside the traditional aesthetic space of the Kolnischer Kunstverein and in the streets of Cologne. Gormley explains that "my idea for this experiment was to test the body in art against urban, lived, space. The sculptures do not take their belonging to the world for granted, they are trying to find their place in it and they do not take the act of standing as a given; they are learning to stand. While being moulded I was trying to be conscious of being upright and in rebuilding the moulds I had to build a structure that would stand. One of the reasons for making one piece lie was to make the point about not taking the standing of the statue for granted. It was also important to underline the object-nature of the work, its status as thing-in-the-world, its potential and its dormancy" (ibid., pp. 21-22).
In his body of work, Gormley explains that "I want to confront existence. It is obviously going to mean more if I use my own body. The optical and the conceptual have dominated in the art of the twentieth century and I turn to the body in an attempt to find a language that will transcend the limitations of race, creed and language, but which will still be about the rootedness of identity. It isn't just an idea about finding an idiom that could be universal, in a way that Modernism failed to do, it is an invitation to recognize a place and a base of consciousness. The body - I keep coming to this idea - is a moving sensor. I want the body to be a sensing mechanism ..." (J. Hutchinson, E.H. Gombrich, L.B. Njatin and W.J.T. Mitchell, eds., ANTONY GORMLEY, LONDON, 2000, p. 140).