Antony Gormley: Event Horizon

From March 26 through August 15, 2010, The Madison Square Park Conservancy will present Antony Gormley’s Event Horizon, a landmark public art exhibition, as part of Mad. Sq. Art 2010.

In Event Horizon, thirty-one life-size body forms of the artist cast in iron and fiberglass will inhabit the pathways and sidewalks of historic Madison Square Park, as well as the rooftops of the many architectural treasures that populate New York’s vibrant Flatiron District. Event Horizon marks Gormley’s United States public art debut — milestone for an artist whose work has garnered worldwide acclaim over the past 25 years.

“I’m thrilled to be working with New York: people and place,” says artist Antony Gormley, “I don’t know what is going to happen, what it will look and feel like, but I want to play with the city and people’s perceptions. My intention is to get the sculptures as close to the edge of the buildings as possible. The field of the installation should have no defining boundary. The gaze is the principle dynamic of the work; the idea of looking and finding, or looking and seeking, and in the process perhaps re-assessing your own position in the world. So in encountering these peripheral things, perhaps one becomes aware of one’s status of embedment.”

Antony Gormley originally created Event Horizon for London’s Hayward Gallery as part of the Blind Light exhibition in 2007. The sculptures were installed on bridges, rooftops and streets along the South Bank of London’s Thames River. In this New York incarnation, Antony Gormley has adapted this exciting project to Manhattan’s unique and awe-inspiring skyline.