Horizon Field - Antony Gormley

Horizon Field, August 2010 - April 2012
A Landscape Installation in the High Alps of Vorarlberg, Austria. Presented by
Kunsthaus Bregenz

The Kunsthaus Bregenz and the British artist Antony Gormley (born in 1950) are realising a unique project in the mountains of Vorarlberg. Horizon Field will be the first art project of its kind erected in the mountains and the largest landscape intervention in Austria to date.

Horizon Field consists of 100 life-size, solid cast iron figures of the human body spread over an area of 150 square kilometers in the communities of Mellau, Schoppernau, Schröcken, Warth, Mittelberg, Lech, Klösterle, and Dalaas. The work forms a horizontal line at 2,039 meters above sea level. This height has no specific metaphorical or thematic relevance in the placement of the statues. It is an altitude that is readily accessible but at the same time lies beyond the realm of everyday life.

According to the artist: "Horizon Field asks: Where does the human project fit within the evolution of life on this planet? The works form a field in which living bodies and active minds are involved in measuring the space and distance through the field of these static iron bodies, and of course both skiers and hikers will be part of this. This installation recognises the deep connection between social and geological territory; between landscape and memory."

The individual sculptures will be mounted at intervals ranging from sixty meters to several kilometers, depending on the topography, looking in all directions but never facing each other. Some of the figures will be installed in places one can hike to or ski past in the winter. Others will be unapproachable, though visible from certain vantage points. The works are neither representations (statues) nor symbols, but represent the place where a human being once was, and where any human being could be.

Antony Gormley on Horizon Field
"In presenting these obdurate, earth-bound but earth-witnessing markers in space and time, the installation puts 100 industrially produced artifacts within an elemental world which is far from the contextualising influences of the museum. It asks basic questions: who are we, what are we, where do we come from and to where are we headed?
This sculptural ensemble recognizes the need for collective futures built on the models of small-scale sustainable communities such as those of the Walsers in the high Alps. The need for the radical revisioning of cultural expression within a new understanding of a homeostatic biosphere is at the 3/6 KUB 10 Press release Antony Gormley heart of this project. I would confidently propose that it is important not just for the region, for Austria but for all sentient beings travelling on this planet."
Antony Gormley, April 2010

More information: www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at