Gormley / Lehmbruck: Calling on the Body opens at the Lehmbruck Museum
Now open at the Lehmbruck Museum is the most extensive exhibition by Antony Gormley in Germany to date. This exhibition has been conceived as a dialogue between the two artists, showcasing key works created almost a century apart.
Calling on the Body encompasses the entire museum, covering an area of 3,000 square metres, with Gormley’s sculptures acting as punctuation points throughout the building. The exhibition includes a selection of works spanning the breadth of the artist’s practice, from his seminal early lead works to the more recent Slabwork series that transform human body-space into architecture.
Presented to the public for the first time in over 10 years is Allotment II (1996), an expansive installation comprised of 300 life-size concrete bunkers, whilst Drift VI (2010) floats in the museum’s glass atrium – a transparent, fine steel sculpture that appears like a three-dimensional drawing in space. In all, 16 sculptures and installations, 111 models, 35 drawings and more than 260 of Antony Gormley's workbooks provide an up-to-date and comprehensive insight into his ‘sculpture as physical thinking’.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue featuring new scholarship from Dr. Söke Dinkla, Ronja Friedrichs and Jon Wood, as well as an insightful conversation between Antony Gormley and the journalist Tobias Haberl.
Photograph: Tuck III, 2020, 90 mm weathering steel slab, 68.5 × 94 × 52 cm and Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Der Gestürzte (Fallen Man), 1915–16, plaster cast, 80.5 × 240 × 83.5 cm. Photograph by Dejan Saric.