Antony Gormley at the Royal Academy 2019

I was privileged to attend a press view of the new Antony Gormley show at the Royal Academy this morning. I liked it very much. It opens on September 21 and closes on December 3.

Key points:

1. It’s a real co-operation between gallery and artist, unique to the place and the time and enhancing both

2. It’s very archaeological, the journey of life monumentalised from birth to eternity, anonymous bodies, footprints, time and space confused

3. See it soon if you can, while the sun is still high and the light good, the natural light in the galleries will fade before long

4. Really do see it

5. Oh, and ignore that Guardian review from someone who didn’t get it.

Here is a selection of things to see in the order of the exhibition, starting outside in the courtyard with a tiny iron baby (above and below).

Tim Marlow, artistic director of the Royal Academy, demonstrating the human form in one of a room-full of steel slab figures:

Curator Martin Caiger- Smith talking about One Apple (1982):

Detail of Exercise Between Blood and Earth  (1979–81):

Chalk dust fallen from Exercise Between Blood and Earth:

Clearing:

Subject (2018):

Matrix II (2014):

Notebooks:

… including ice age art:

Body and light drawings (1990s):

Lost Horizon:

Cave:

Pile and Pile II:

Host:

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