Antony Gormley at Houghton Hall

ANTONY GORMLEY’S TIME HORIZON,  COMPRISING 100 LIFE-SIZE SCULPTURES,
OPENS AT HOUGHTON HALL IN NORFOLK
Sunday 21 April – Thursday 31 October 2024 / Houghton Hall, Norfolk

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the press launch of Antony Gormley's Time Horizon in person today but will get myself there soon and give you my personal opinions, but I always enjoy shows at Houghton - they are usually very well-curated and in such stunning surroundings that they can't fail really. Split and linked between the grounds and the interior of the house (this time Magdalene Odundo's ceramic and glass work will be in the house) it is normally a full day out when you can also visit the gardens, dedicated to, cultivated and loved by Lord Cholmondely's mother Lavinia.  There is the Soldier Museum and acres of parkland including the famous white deer. There is also a collection of outdoor sculptures by a variety of artists such as Rachel Whiteread and James Turrell, with the Cholmondeley's adding new works each year. This year, 100 cast iron versions of Antony Gormley have been installed around the grounds. It has taken months as they have all be placed the same datum line so that their eyes are level on one plane and intended to guide and lead you around the space. The exhibition is a real coup for Houghton as it is a major Gormley show. He lives locally and I am sure he would want to see his work on home turf, especially in a well-respected location such as Houghton, which has built up a reputation with string of big name artists, from Henry Moore to Anish Kapoor, So we have a great opportunity on our doorstep. I will be going as soon as I can,, I hope that you do too

 In the meantime here is the official press release for the show which pens on 21st Apri

Time Horizon, one of Antony Gormley’s most spectacular large-scale installations, will be shown at Houghton Hall in Norfolk from 21 April – 31 October 2024, the first time the work will be staged in the UK.
 
Featuring 100 life-size sculptures, the works are distributed across 300 acres of the park, the furthest away being approximately 1.5 miles on the West Avenue.  The cast-iron sculptures, each weighing 620kg and standing at an average of 191cm, are installed at the same datum level to create a single horizontal plane across the landscape.  Some works are buried, allowing only a part of the head to be visible, while others are buried to the chest or knees according to the topography.  Only occasionally do they stand on the existing surface.  Around a quarter of the works are placed on concrete columns that vary from a few centimetres high to rising four meters off the ground.
 
Antony Gormley is one of the most important artists of his generation and is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space.  His work has been exhibited throughout the UK and internationally.
 
Antony Gormley said: ‘My ambition for this show is that people should roam far and wide.  Art has recently privileged the object rather than the experience that objects can initiate.  Time Horizon is not a picture, it is a field and you are in it.  The work puts the experience of the subject/visitor/protagonist on an equal footing with all material presences, organic and inorganic.  The quality of the light, the time of the year, the state of the weather and the condition of your mind, body and soul are all implicated in the field, as is all the evidence within it of human activity already accomplished as well as the plethora of life forms that surround the hall.’
 
Lord Cholmondeley, owner of Houghton Hall, said: ‘It has been an extraordinary experience witnessing the installation of 100 life-size sculptures in the historic landscape surrounding the house. It is a great privilege to have the opportunity to show this large-scale work by Antony Gormley for the first time in the UK.  We hope visitors will enjoy exploring Houghton and the interesting dynamic between Time Horizon and our exhibition of Magdalene Odundo's ceramic and glass work, which will open in May.’
 
Houghton Hall was built by Sir Robert Walpole, Great Britain’s first Prime Minister, in around 1722.  Designed by prominent Georgian architects Colen Campbell and James Gibbs, it is one of the country’s finest examples of Palladian architecture.  Houghton and its estate passed to the Cholmondeley family at the end of the 18th Century and remains a family home.  The house and award-winning gardens have been open to the public since 1976.
 
The Houghton Arts Foundation continues to build a collection of contemporary art at Houghton including a number of site-specific commissions.  With links to colleges and public institutions across the region, the Foundation’s aim is for Houghton to become a focus for those who wish to see great art of our time in a historic setting.  The 2024 exhibitions by Antony Gormley and Magdalene Odundo follow those by James Turrell (2015), Richard Long (2017), Damien Hirst (2018), Henry Moore (2019), Anish Kapoor (2020), Tony Cragg (2021), Chris Levine (2021) and Sean Scully (2023).
 
Antony Gormley Biography 
Antony Gormley is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space. His work has developed the potential opened up by sculpture since the 1960s through a critical engagement with both his own body and those of others in a way that confronts fundamental questions of where human beings stand in relation to nature and the cosmos. Gormley continually tries to identify the space of art as a place of becoming in which new behaviours, thoughts and feelings can arise.

Gormley’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the UK and internationally with exhibitions at Musée Rodin, Paris (2023); Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg (2022); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (2022); National Gallery Singapore, Singapore (2021); Schauwerk Sindelfingen, Sindelfingen (2021); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2019); Delos, Greece (2019); Uffizi Gallery, Florence (2019); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (2019); Long Museum, Shanghai (2017); National Portrait Gallery, London (2016); Forte di Belvedere, Florence (2015); Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2014); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia (2012); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2012); The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2010); Hayward Gallery, London (2007); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (1993) and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (1989). Permanent public works include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England), Another Place (Crosby Beach, England), Inside Australia (Lake Ballard, Western Australia), Exposure (Lelystad, the Netherlands), Chord  (MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA) and Alert (Imperial College London, England).

Gormley was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, the South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999, the Bernhard Heiliger Award for Sculpture in 2007, the Obayashi Prize in 2012 and the Praemium Imperiale in 2013. In 1997 he was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) and was made a knight in the New Year’s Honours list in 2014. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, an Honorary Doctor of the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity and Jesus Colleges, Cambridge. Gormley has been a Royal Academician since 2003.

Antony Gormley was born in London in 1950.