Antony Gormley Denies UEA Sculptures Have Suicidal Subtext

Sir Antony Gormley UEA Installation

The Turner Prize-winning artist Sir Antony Gormley has spoken for the first time about criticisms of his latest installation at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich. The piece features life-size human figures perched on the edges of tall university buildings. The work is part of a sculpture park being created on the campus.

“Part of campus life is about debate and I would have been disappointed if there had been none.” – Sir Antony Gormley

A number of students have come forward complaining the figures look like people contemplating jumping off. Gormley stated; All art should be “unsettling” and his work was “nothing to do with suicide”.

The Angel Of The North creator casts iron figures modelled on his own body. The sculptures are part of an art project featuring three Gormley sculptures One student criticised the work saying: “I really did think it was someone who was going to jump off a building.”

Gormley defended the UEA installation, stating: “These works are nothing to do with suicide, they’re actually to do with life and they’re placed on the skyline in a way to make us think about space and distance. “Universities are places where people spend a lot of time thinking about the thoughts of others, “I think it’s a wonderful place to balance that intellectual life with an object that is silent, it doesn’t need to be read. It has to be felt, it has to be lived with,” he added.

Sir Antony Gormley
Sir Antony Gormley

Calvin Winner of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, which created the art trail, told the BBC: “Part of campus life is about debate and I would have been disappointed if there had been none.”

Gormley said he chose to display the work at the UEA because of its Brutalist concrete architecture in natural surroundings. The artist said, “It shows how human-made things can co-exist with the elemental world”. Gormley usually exhibits these works in urban developments.

The sculptures will remain at the UEA for five years.

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