To coincide with his exhibition Critical Mass at the Musée Rodin, the artist Antony Gormley talks to Guitemie Maldonado, art historian and professor at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, about his practice as a sculptor.

Antony Gormley was born in London in 1950. For over forty years, he has been exploring the relationship between man and the space around him through the human body. He is currently presenting the exhibition Critical Mass at the Musée Rodin (until 3 March 2024), in which his works engage in dialogue with those of Auguste Rodin, inviting visitors to reflect on the two sculptors and their shared desire to use the role of the body as the subject of sculpture, but also as an object and a tool for questioning.

Antony Gormley has exhibited in numerous museums around the world, including the Louisiana, Humlebæk (1989); the Konsthall, Malmö (1993); the Hayward Gallery, London (2007), the Kunsthaus Bregenz (2010); the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2011); the Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2012); the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2019); the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2019); the National Gallery, Singapore (2021); the Voorlinden Museum, Wassenaar (2022); and the Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg (2022). He took part in the Venice Biennale in 1982 and 1986, and the documenta in Kassel in 1987. His monumental sculptures installed in public spaces include The Angel of the North in Gateshead (1998), Quantum Cloud (2000) on the banks of the Thames in London, Another Place (2005) on Crosby Beach, Inside Australia (2002-03) on Ballard Salt Lake and Exposure (2010) in Lelystad, north-east of Amsterdam. In France, his sculptures Cloud Chain (2012) and WITNESS VII and WITNESS VIII (2021) are permanently installed at the Archives nationales and the École du Louvre respectively.

Antony Gormley was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, the South Bank Prize for Fine Art in 1999 and the Bernhard Heiliger Prize for Sculpture in 2007. Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1997, he was knighted for services to the arts in 2014. Antony Gormley was elected to the Royal Academy in 2003 and to the Board of Trustees of the British Museum in 2007. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and has an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University.

Guitemie Maldonado is an art historian and professor at the Beaux-Arts de Paris.

With the support of the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery.

The interview will take place in English.

Penser le Présent is produced with the support of Société Générale.

Free admission subject to availability

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Photo credit: © Droits réservés