Passage

Exhibition: Fit

Artist: Antony Gormley

Medium: 6 mm weathering steel
Dimension: 79 1/2 x 28 7/16 x 471 5/8 in. (202 x 72.2 x 1198 cm)
Year: 2016

Antony Gormley is a contemporary British artist best known for his sculptures, which explores the
fundamental questions of where human beings stand in relation to nature and the cosmos. His sculptures
of the human figures are all moulded with his own body, and exemplify human form in space. To Gormley,
the space that art occupies is a place of becoming in which new behaviours, thoughts, and feelings can
arise.

Passage is one of the 24 works in 15 interconnected chambers in the Fit exhibition. Through installing a 12
meter-long, narrow, black steel tunnel shaped as a block outline of Gormley's figure in the middle of a white
room, Gormley prompts the audience to actively engage with the artwork by walking through it. As Gormley
put it, this allows forms and materials to work on us, releasing us from any expectations of what sculpture is
and how it might act on us, and explores what it means to [for us to] inhabit a body, and what it means for
a body to inhabit a space. Regarding the theme of the artwork, Gormley stated that one could interpret the
artwork as addressing the forces of conformism, but that there is no definitive theme for the artwork. He is
merely providing the audience the instruments by which you [they] become aware of these things.

As shown in the photo on the right above, the Passage is narrow, allowing for only one person to pass at a
time, which makes the experience of the art more personal. This also plunges the audience into darkness, as
their body blocks off the light when they walk through the tunnel. According to Tabish Khan, a reporter who
works for the Londonist on art shows, All visitors seem to stop halfway as they entertain some doubt about
the tunnel never ending. As the audience approaches the end of the tunnel, they are once again be
welcomed by the light. Khan also described the experience as an opportunity for us to learn more about
ourselves and our instincts than about the artist.

Gormleys theories, approach to engage the audience, and method of suggesting the theme of conformism
can be referenced when we are creating our artwork. The theories could guide our approach to our artwork,
in that we are not presenting a theme/ problem/ social issue, but prompting the audience to think about it. In
addition, we could borrow and reinvent the idea of making a human-shaped tunnel to explore the theme of
conformism and media influence.
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