Saturday 11th July, 2009 saw the opening of the Antony Gormley Solo in Bregenz, Austria.  A physical monograph across four floors, spanning over 16 years of his career, it is his biggest retrospective in Europe to date.

And, as I am currently living in the country, it was one that I refused to miss…

I sat opposite Peter Zumthor’s acclaimed Kunsthaus in the adjacent coffee house, trying to pass a few minutes before the doors opened.  All the time watching Bregenz’s great and good assemble. When I could not wait a minute longer, I left my unfinished drink and crossed the square towards the hazy cube, a shower of shingles glowing golden in the evening sun like frozen sheets hacked from the Bodensee behind. 

‘Body and Fruit’ (1991/93) occupies the foyer. Two bulbous lumps, which could originally have any kind of fruit are blown up beyond recognition to huge proportions, hovering a few centimetres above the gallery floor.  Above is ‘Allotment II’ (1996), the spatial representation of 300 inhabitants of Malmö, whose “intimate measurements” were transferred into hollow concrete shells, each just big enough to hold the sitter.

In his opening speech Antony talked of mnemonics, memories made physical and this work is just that.  Like a photograph, it records an event. Surely an exciting, strange and memorable one for the subjects and as one walks around, this can be felt.  There is an atmosphere of a village fete, the cubes stand roughly on a grid but there seem to be family groups and more open spaces where visitors gather to talk, like a village itself.

On the third level is ‘Clearing V’ (2009), a twelve kilometre looping coil of aluminium tubing. Unlike the previous installation, whose only clue in the stairwell was the gasp of the person in front of you, it reaches right into the landing at the top of the stair. You are forced to enter it, climbing over the limbs and ducking through the gaps. There was a warning that the dyed aluminium would rub off black onto your clothes if you brushed it but the gallery goers were risking their best – one woman was even crawling.   
This work is unapologetically artificial, no attempt is made to evoke a ‘naturalness’; nevertheless, a spirit of that is conjured. I recalled rummaging through a thicket near my home in Cumbria which was maintained by one of the village elders, a farmer and a painter. It’s a dow spot or ‘enchanted spring’ a mixture of depthless bog and native trees woven between wild orchid hybrida- despite the difference there is commonality with this piece.

Many people were complaining of claustrophobia by now. The absence of vistas and the heady combination of art and architecture was intense, almost painfully so.  But the final floor was something of a release. It is the most light, not having any concrete overhead and you feel you have worked your way through to the clouds. 

‘Critical Mass II’ (1995) has found a fitting home here. Walking around I pondered this arrangement of androgynous figures- there was certainly allegory present, perhaps something about society. Somewhere off centre a heap of stacked bodies lie. Others range off from it or hang solo, thinking, looking or rebelling.  Some obey gravity and others defy it. There is even a group in free fall, a squadron of dive bombers, noble and sleek.  None of the body’s forms acknowledges its neighbours nor are they wrought with any expression. Any communication, is therefore limited to the arrangement, the rest must be imagined. They are ridged and bare, I also noticed that their feet were cast flat soled, i.e. in contact with the floor, like Greek plasters casts, even when the figures are not standing. 

You want them to talk. However these anonymous figures are open for interpretation and as Antony said, we viewers are the ‘subject of the works’, which remain objects, essentially empty, as it is ‘we’ who must interpret them. When you have had enough and as the elevator doors close this room off to you, a single seated thinker faces you across the room and you can be sure that unlike you, he will not be moving. 

The Antony Gormley Solo is running until October, so if you’ve been meaning to visit the Bregenz Kunsthaus, now is the perfect time to do so.  You can fly into Zurich which is only a couple of hours west or a number of closer airports.  Alternatively get on your old 125 and drive down the Rhine.

www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at/