21 April - 31 October, 2024
Antony Gormley
'TIME HORIZON'
The Exhibition
Time Horizon, one of Antony Gormley’s most spectacular large-scale installations, was exhibited at Houghton Hall from April to October, 2024. The exhibition was shown across the grounds and through the house - the first time the work had been staged in the UK.
One hundred life-size sculptures were distributed across 300 acres of the park, the furthest away being approximately 1.5 miles on the West Avenue. The cast-iron body forms, each weighing 620kg and standing at an average of 191cm, were installed at the same datum level to create a single horizontal plane across the landscape. Some works were buried, allowing only a part of the head to be visible, while others were sunk to the chest or knees according to the topography. Only occasionally did they stand on the existing surface. Around a quarter of the works were placed on columns that varied from a few centimetres high to rising four metres off the ground.
About the Artist
Antony Gormley is one of the most important artists of his generation and is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space. His work has been exhibited throughout the UK and internationally.
Antony said of his 2024 show at Houghton Hall:
“My ambition for Time Horizon is that people should roam far and wide. Art has recently privileged the object rather than the experience that objects can initiate. Time Horizon is not a picture, it is a field and you are in it. The work puts the experience of the subject/visitor/protagonist on an equal footing with all material presences, organic and inorganic. The quality of the light, the time of the year, the state of the weather and the condition of your mind, body and soul are all implicated in the field, as is all the evidence within it of human activity already accomplished as well as the plethora of life forms that surround the hall.”
Acknowledgements
Organised by the Houghton Arts Foundation, with support from Thaddaeus Ropac and White Cube galleries, and key assistance from the artist and his studio. The Houghton Arts Foundation continues to build a collection of contemporary art at Houghton including a number of site-specific commissions. With links to colleges and public institutions across the region, the Foundation’s aim is for Houghton to become a focus for those who wish to see great art of our time in a historic setting.
"As visitors wander through the grounds of Houghton Hall, they are invited to contemplate the landscape’s vastness with the figures’ human scale. Gormley’s “Time Horizon” transcends the boundaries, offering a profound meditation on the human experience in all its beauty and complexity." Artlyst
