Author Description

This book is made up of 10 classical sculptures from the Hermitage Museum, removed from their plinths and repositioned to share a raised floor with the viewer; and 17 highly abstracted body-forms by Antony Gormley. The idea is to juxtapose ancient, idealized statues with Gormley's more disinterested sculptures and see whether, in Gormley's work, the abstract language of Euclidean geometry can make a shelter for feeling, and whether, in the case of the classical works, demounting and putting the viewer on the same level as their original makers can re-establish them as made things. The interaction of the public, captured in documentary photographs, is key to a project that aims to show how classical marbles, Gormley's own sculptures and the living human visitors inhabit the same space and can converse with each other. Exhibition: Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, autumn 2011.