On Antony Gormless..iron men in the Alps

On Antony Gormley's piece in The Grauniad Review. 07 08 2010.






'Why I put 100 iron men in the Alps' by A.Gormless.



Not content with spreading replicas of himself all over Britain (the real one is bad enough!) the postmodernist A. Gormless, has decided to despoliate bits of Austria, the more unspoilt the better!



'In the summer of 2005' he writes, 'my wife and I went to wander in the mountains of Vorarlberg to see if it was possible to install a multiple-body work there.'



Describing the charm, the solitude, the pastoral beauty of the region, Gormley goes on

'There was something euphoric about the silence and clear air of those days spent walking.'



A shame, then that he had to come along and spoil it all!



'Horizon Field' he gargoyles 'comprises 100 iron body forms spread over seven valleys, creating a field that makes its own horizon, the latest of my attempts to ask a simple question in material terms: " Where does the human being fit in the scheme of things?"



In his scheme of things, the human being known as Antony Gormless fits in anywhere he plants it and a good few other places besides. Crosby, Cuxhaven, London, New York have been overrun with lifesize and irremoveable Antony Gormlesses and the Austrian Alps, he is determined, will be no exception. At this very moment, the gritty Gormless is believed to be preparing a single asbestos 20,000 ft.'Gormless of the Desert' to dwarf the Sahara it will stand upon.

And that's not all! He will soon be unveiling 100 stainless steel Gormlesses, currently housed in an Asda superwarehouse which will withstand the lowest temperatures known to 'iron man' Gormless. They will be hauled by a team of 20,000 huskies backed up by snowskis and planted at the North and South Poles, sunk deep into the ice-cap. Gormless himself will be there to open the ceremony.

And there's more... several hundred titanium models are to be launched to the Moon and then Mars from Cape Canaveral in December. They are due to touch down in the next few months. The sculptures will be known as 'Yet Another Place.'

He's also planning a Satgorm made up of a cluster of Gormlesses welded together to orbit planet Earth in perpetuity.



'People may well ask' he rumbles, surveying the Gormlesses peppering the Austrian Alps, "What the hell is this thing doing here?" and the work returns that question and it responds reflexively "What the hell are you doing here?"'



He has a little reflection himself: 'Michi Manhart, the local hunter, farmer, landowner and ski-lift owner' he writes' decided that 100 iron men was just what the mountains...needed. So long as the helicopters installing them did not disturb the deer he intended to shoot.'





Operation cast

iron only shows Gormley's

self love and brass neck.