Antony Gormley: An epic journey, from Neanderthals in their caves to the Angel of the North

Iconic: Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North
PA
Alastair McKay25 January 2019

The art of Antony Gormley exists in the happy space between critical respect and popular acclaim, which isn’t an easy destination. How did he get there?

There is something universal in Gormley’s approach. His artistic signature — the Angel of the North aside — is his own naked body, cast in metal.

His art is a monument to himself, except that the naked Gormley is transformed in the mould. He becomes an everyman. And universality, when it’s done properly, is something everyone can understand.

But still there are questions. One of the things Gormley’s art is asking is, he says, “What does it feel like to be alive now?” (Exhilarating, nerve-racking and boring, since you ask, Antony). What about art from the time before art history? If we look at the art of the ancients, Gormley suggests, maybe we can connect with something vital that we’ve lost.

Pictured: Robert Forster & Lindy Morrison & Robert Vickers & Grant McLennan
Robyn Stacey / Kew Media

This involves travel, first to France, then to Spain, Indonesia and to Western Australia, as Gormley broadens his question to “Why do we make art?” Forty years ago, Gormley and his wife went on honeymoon to Vézère in south-west France. He was fresh out of art school. The collars on his checked shirt were pointed and long. He was travelling to see the place where art began. The cave drawings in this area are between 14,000 and 16,000 years old — they are no longer considered the oldest artworks in the world but Gormley’s awe on revisiting them is infectious.

He is almost at a loss for words, issuing exclamations about the energy in the lines, the way a few scratches with a flint can capture the essence of an animal. “I think we just have to give up on the idea of the hairy caveman being a brute,” he concludes.

His art-spelunking continues in the French-Pyrenees, where the images are darker. The drawings here suggest humans were celebrating their superiority, and their right to end the lives of other creatures. Gormley suggests the artist is “a palaeolithic Picasso”, which isn’t as much of a compliment as you might think. “I don’t care for Picasso,” he says, “because he was a predator.”

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And so it goes, the story of art, back to the time when it was a series of dots on a wall, or a hand stencil formed of sooty spit. The Neanderthals may have been artists too. Gormley ends up in Australia, lying on a ledge “halfway between the ground and the sky” looking at a drawing of shadows, trying to articulate something that is between thought and expression. “Leaving a present absence,” he suggests ... “A moment of lived time.”

The Go-Betweens never had a hit but their posthumous reputation is flourishing. Leading this angular, arty Australian group from Brisbane were two songwriters, Grant McLennan and Robert Forster.

The shorthand suggests they were “the indie Lennon/McCartney”, but that says nothing about the way their lyrics unspooled like scenes from New Wave films, or novels with missing pages. This film captures their awkward brilliance.

Antony Gormley: How Art Began is on Saturday at 9pm on BBC Two. The Go-Betweens: Right Here is on Sky Arts at 9pm on Saturday.

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