Antony Gormley

Salvatore Ala Gallery, New York
Private Collection
Christie's, London, 22 June 2006, Lot 50
Private Collection, Europe
Thence by descent to the present owner

New York, Salvatore Ala Gallery, Antony Gormley, April - May 1989

Michael Mack, Ed., Antony Gormley, Göttingen 2007, p. 509, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly darker in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals some light scratches and rub marks in places. Further inspection reveals some light oxidation and burnishing in places, which is in keeping with the artist's choice of materials.
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“Within the body there is a doubling of many of the organs: two sides of the brain, two eyeballs, two ears, two lungs, two testicles, two kidneys, two hands, two legs. I wanted to make single sculptures that extend this mirroring to two complete bodies conjoined.

This is a double case, echoing mitosis or non-sexual reproduction which celebrates the darkness of the body (the place you are when you close your eyes) as a place of power. I want you to think about the hermetic inner space of the work. I hope the work expresses the power of a fusion with this space.”

ANTONY GORMLEY


FOLD II is a beautiful example of Gormley’s iconic early sculpture, part of a distinct series of double body-case works created between 1987 and 1989. The work features a mirrored replication of a single corporeality - a single hermetically sealed entity of harmonic doubling.

Whilst the majority of the dual body-case sculptures face away from each other, as though straining to assert separation, the two closely coiled forms of FOLD II evoke a profound desire for connection and engagement. As Darian Leader notes, “one is reminded of the Aristophanic myth in Plato’s Symposium, according to which the world’s first inhabitants were spherical, subsequently split in two by the gods as punishment for their divine aspirations. Each part would then spend the rest of its life trying to refind its other, lost half.” Here, in FOLD II, “we see two bodies so close as to be one but never quite getting there.” He continues “in the artist’s notebooks, we often find the preliminary sketches for single figure works featuring not one but two bodies, joined obliquely or striving to identify. These sculptures suggest that the body we inhabit is defined in a sense by the very effort to join another body, even if this lost part is entirely unseen.” (Darian Leader in: ‘Drawing in Space’, Antony Gormley, Making Space, Gateshead 2004, p. 61).

FOLD II forms an important part of Gormley’s longstanding exploration of the body’s relationship to void and space. He has said that what he aims at is less representation of the body than the space left by the body. Within the rusted cast iron body-case of FOLD II is an empty cavernous void. The outer forms of this work, despite their proximity, describe separate bodies attempting but failing to fuse, however the absolute darkness inside the work is total and unified.