Gormley's 'Domain Field' at the Baltic

I've not seen it yet but I like both his field for the british isles and the gateshead flasher.

I saw the work in progress at the welding stage. Slightly more interesting than most.

Most what Alang? Most Gormley? Most art? Most worksinprogressattheweldingstage?

contemporary art

What's he bullshitting about Squirmy?

What is this work? I loved the Field For The British Isles, and I like a lot of his body pieces, and I liked a good few of the drawings recently shown at the British Museum. I think he's one of the more interesting contemporary artists.

How does this exhibit relate to his many statues / field of little people / whatever thing? Is it part of that process? I couldn't work that out.

Perhaps Tim knows.

I haven't seen it (obv., it's in the North) but it appears its kind of sort of halfway inbetween "Field" and the scultpture outside the Dome. There are some details here:

http://www.balticmill.com/html/viean2.html

I like Gormely a great deal. I always assume his sculptures, even "The Angel of the North" (but obv. not "Field" are self-portraits, variously rendered: I'm not sure whether this is some half-remembered piece of information from a magazine or the TV, or merely a rather typical piece of wrongness on my part.

Anyhow, in this context, this collection of other figures in the Gormley style seems quite touching to me, quite humane. The picture on that link reminds me of the network of blood vessels in a human baby which was on the front of our biology textbook. I wonder if I would find it boring IRL? Probably not.

I was revelling in a set of paintings of hospital floorplans the other week (Alison Turnbull at Matt's: the photos of the work don't give any idea of how rich and reserved they feel).

While I'm here: terrific stuff to see in Cork St right now includes Matthew Radford at Houldswoth (http://www.houldsworth.co.uk/previous/03_radford/show1.html) and Alan cristea simultaneously: paintings and prints which combine figurative work, circuit boards and camo. Also a heartstoppingly brilliant little show at the Refern of '20s prints Cyril Power / Sybil Andrews and their circle http://www.redfern-gallery.co.uk/images/s/6672.jpg

Oops that Matt's link (I can't imagine anyone's very interested but for the sake of comepleteness ect ect): http://www.mattsgallery.org/

Crikey that was spectacularly unclear, even by my own low standards.

When I see a Gormley piece (Field excepted) I feel I'm looking at a self-portrait, and what he's getting at is how it feels to be him WRT the rest of the world: the same figure in various situations. I ended up feeling that "Field" was that in reverse: that I as the viewer was standing in for the figure of him (as the viewed) and that the Gorms were standing in for me/us.

Since I've been seeing his work as so self-image driven this new thing seems engaging and humane in a 'nothing's too good for ordinary people' way.

I hate writing about art like this because (a) I end up expressing what feels complex and delicate in a clumsy way (b) because I don't read artcrit I imagine I'm saying something blindingly banal and obvious (hey what I like about them Beatles is they wrote their own songs with such great melodies).

That's more than enough.

"I hate writing about art like this because (a) I end up expressing what feels complex and delicate in a clumsy way (b) because I don't read artcrit I imagine I'm saying something blindingly banal and obvious"

Fuck that shit Tim - your words would only come across banal and obvious if they were especially informed by artcrit. As it is, your reaction to Gormley's work is more enlightening than some clinical pseudo artbabble. Anyways, what's wrong with expressing what feels complex and delicate in a clumsy way? Somehow, that sometimes kind of makes reaction all the more telling and engaging, to me at least.

haha pleas for mercy = effective ilx tactic.

Clumsy expression may sometimes be a good thing but I'd rather not really.

I love your comments on art, Tim, and wish you'd do more here.

Gormley's many life-size male figures are all (or maybe mostly) from casts of his own body, and the Angel looks on the same model to me. I had seen pics of this new thing before and like it a lot. I think he's addressing boundaries and edges both in the artistic senses that many artists used in the 20th Century, but especially in the bodily sense, since what we have here are more or less naturalistic human figures which are far from solid and actually have no real external surface in the usual sense. I think his body of work is about as interesting an artistic examination of the human body as I can think of in decades.

I like the process but not the results. The empty casts piled behind the gallery said more to me than walking through the metal twiglet bodies. Gormley has a meta-idea and if that doesn't grab you then neither do the ideas that spring from it. Gormley gets a lot of coverage in the North East and I just don't believe the hype.

if you dont like domain field you have no tast, therefore you have no right to be judging others work. Its a beautiful example of comtemporary sculpture