 are constructed from nesting and stacking space-frames that delineate body space, and then extending them into space at large. Some volumes are extended, some expanded, and all render body as space: porous and coextensive.

‘[Malevich] envisaged a non-objective architecture based on weight, speed, direction of movement – on the conquest of static weight, and extension into space. “I think that freedom can be obtained only after our ideas about the organisation of solids have been completely smashed … Nature’s perfection lies in the absolute, blind freedom of units within it – units that are at the same time absolutely interdependent … solid matter does not exist in nature. There is only energy.” There is so much in this that connects with Gormley’s interpretation of the body in the language of architecture, and as a zone of energy, particularly at the point where he relaxed the notion of architecture as a constrictive container for the body – as a bounding condition – and took it, instead, like Malevich, as a means of extending into space. The cosmic dimension of Malevich’s rhetoric again finds ready parallels in Gormley’s own allusions; Malevich’s ‘suprematist beam’, an ideal volume having a square section and a variable extension into space, is acknowledged in Gormley’s ongoing 

 series of body works, begun in 2009, in the 

Framers

, 2009, 5 mm square section mild steel bar, 220 × 94 × 119 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London. 

Scaffolding

, 2009, 6 mm square section mild steel bar, 222 × 167 × 185 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Fall

, 2010, 8 mm square section mild steel bar, 247 × 149.5 × 119.5 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Propose II

, 2009, 8 mm square section mild steel bar, 194 × 39 × 40 cm. Photograph by Todd White Photography, London.

Construct

, 2010, 8 mm square section mild steel bar, 194 × 41 × 35 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Clasp III

, 2010, 8 mm square section mild steel bar, 339.2 × 45.6 × 38.4 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Project II

, 2010, 8 mm square section mild steel bar, 176 × 53 × 50 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Gut VII

, 2010, 8 mm square section mild steel bar, 191.8 × 35.2 × 41.7 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Construct III

, 2010, 2 mm square section stainless steel bar, 193 × 40 × 33 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Construct V

, 2011, 8mm square section mild steel bar, 191.2 × 41.6 × 35.2 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Construct VII

, 2011, 8 mm square section mild steel bar, 190 × 93 × 158 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Clutch VI

, 2011, 8 mm square section mild steel bar, 48 × 23 × 40 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Clutch VII

, 2011, 3 mm square stainless steel bar, 181 × 45.5 × 40.5 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Shrive V

, 2011, 3 mm square stainless steel bar, 193 × 42 × 34 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Construct VI

, 2011, 3 mm square section stainless steel bar, 170 × 49 × 48 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Tense

, 2011, 3 mm stainless steel bar, 191 × 48 × 34 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Construct IX

, 2011, 3 mm square section stainless steel bar, 192 × 41.5 × 31 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Construct VIII

, 2011, 3 mm square section stainless steel bar, 165 × 50 × 46 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Tense II

, 2012, 3 mm square section stainless steel bar, 78.3 × 42.6 × 61.5 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Hold V

, 2012, 4 mm square section stainless steel bar, 82 × 62 × 73 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

, 2012, 3 mm square stainless steel bar, 62 × 82 × 68 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Cotch VIII

, 2012, 4 mm square section stainless steel bar, 46 × 100 × 73 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Lot III

, 2012, 3 mm square section stainless steel bar, 190.5 × 53.7 × 46.5 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Mirror

, 2013, 2 mm square section stainless steel bar, 242 × 55 × 37 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

, 2013, 4 mm square section stainless steel bar, 77 × 63 × 73 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Cotch XI

, 2012, 4 mm square section stainless steel bar, 35 × 90 × 72 cm. Installation view Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Belgium, 2013. Photograph by Allard Bovenberg.

Lot II

, 2013, 10 mm square section stainless steel bar, dimensions variable. Installation view, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Belgium, 2013. Photograph by Allard Bovenberg.

Frame

, 2013, 2 mm square section stainless steel bar, 240 × 48 × 46 cm. Installation view, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Belgium, 2013. Photograph by Allard Bovenberg.

Fall II

, 2013, 5 mm square section stainless steel bar, 107.3 × 77.1 × 80.3 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

, 2013, 5 mm square section stainless steel bar, 225 × 78 × 63.5 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Place

, 2013, 2 mm square section stainless steel bar, 208 × 48 × 50 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Fall III

, 2013, 3 mm square section stainless steel bar, 202.5 × 68 × 41 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Gauge II

, 2013, 3 mm square section stainless steel bar, 203.5 × 50 × 30 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Gauge III

, 2013, 5 mm square section stainless steel bar, 215 × 67 × 72.4 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Console (Frame)

, 2014, 20 × 20 mm stained stainless steel tube and plastic spigots, 420.5 × 430 × 411 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Murmur

, 2014, 5 mm square section stainless steel bar, 192 × 72.5 × 63.5 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Place II

, 2014, 3 mm square section stainless steel bar, 191.5 × 56 × 50 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Meet

, 2014, 5 mm square section stainless steel bar, 201 × 54 × 59 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Heel

, 2015, 3 mm square section stainless steel bar, 167 × 50 × 47 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Tender II

, 2015, 2 mm square section stainless steel bar, 185 × 49 × 34 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Border (Frame)

, 2016, 5 mm square section stainless steel bar, 267 × 122 × 104 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

, 2016, 5 mm square section stainless steel bar, 222 × 80 × 76.5 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Console III

, 2021, 2 mm square section stainless steel bar, dimensions variable. Installation view, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy. Photograph by Ela Bialkowska, OKNO studio.


Framers

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