 […] return[s] to raw material, the stuff of the earth, its stark presentation of the unformed. Viewed from a threshold […] 

 extends before you, immediate and visible in its entirety. It is a vast liquid expanse, an admix of equal parts earth and Atlantic seawater, flooding the gallery to a depth of 23 centimetres. 

A raw, uncanny occupation of space, the work unavoidably asserts the presence of the organic and the elemental in an exhibition of constructed environments and architectural reference. Host is ‘the outside brought inside’, as Gormley puts it, a tabula rasa and an evocation of the world yet to be acted upon. It enacts a still, silent assault on the senses as earth, air and water exchange their elements, exuding a rich organic smell; its red-brown surface reflects the shifting conditions of natural light as time passes. 

 offers another horizon, though one framed by four walls; as such it could be read as a canvas laid down, a painting in two dimensions, or as a three-dimensional sculptural form - as an alien addition to the space, a deposit, or as a subtraction, an emptying out.

Martin Caiger Smith, edited excerpt from the exhibition catalogue Antony Gormley, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2019, p. 250.

, 2019, clay and seawater, 23 × 1274 × 1641 cm. Installation view, Royal Academy of Arts, London. Photograph by Oak Taylor Smith.

Host, Royal Academy of Arts, London

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