Antony Gormley Opens First Public U.S. Exhibition

Antony Gormley may have established himself through public art exhibitions in England, but now the artist is moving across the pond and literally bringing himself into his work. New York’s Madison Square Park Conservancy presented Event Horizon, an installation including 31 life-size iron and fiberglass figures cast from Gormley’s body, and will remain up until August 15. The British sculptor has figuratively put himself all over Manhattan—from sidewalks to the Empire State Building—and some New Yorkers are mistaking the works for potential suicides. “Groups of people were talking to each other and pointing out the work,” Gormley said excitedly of his recently erected exhibition. “For me, that’s the great joy of this thing. What it does is it creates these little tableaux of people who maybe never met before, taking account of their surroundings simply through the agency of the work. It may be a small thing, but it’s just really wonderful to see it happen.”