''Event Horizon'' is the name of a large-scale public sculpture installation by the British artist

Antony Gormley Sir Antony Mark David Gormley (born 30 August 1950) is a British sculptor. His works include the ''Angel of the North'', a public sculpture in Gateshead in the north of England, commissioned in 1994 and erected in February 1998; ''Another Pl ...

. First displayed in London in 2007, they were later displayed in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, downtown

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and

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, Brazil. Gormley describes his statues as "...showing solitary figures installed in groups yet retaining their sense of solitude and reflection."

Installations

Originally mounted in London in 2007, the project consists of 31 life-size anatomically correct male bodies, 27 constructed of fiberglass and four of cast iron, all cast from the body of the artist himself.''Event Horizon: Mad. Sq. Art.: Antony Gromley'
Madison Square installation guide
/ref> which were placed on top of prominent buildings along the London's

South Bank The South Bank is an entertainment and commercial area on the south bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Lambeth, central London, England. The South Bank is not formally defined, but is generally understood to be situated betwe ...

– for example the Shell Building and

Waterloo Bridge Waterloo Bridge () is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges. Its name commemorates the victory of the British, Dutch and Prussians at the ...

. Part of Gormley's 2007 retrospective exhibition ''Blind Light'' at the

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Royal ...

, it was best viewed from the gallery's terraces. The statues were occasionally mistaken as suicide attempts. The installation was taken down in August and September 2007. Gormley had previously constructed a similar project, ''

Another Place "Another place" or "the other place" is a euphemism used in many bicameral parliaments using the Westminster system (including Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom) and several rival educational establishments. Parliaments A member of one h ...

'', in Crosby Beach,

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial and metropolitan county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, Cheshire to the south, the Wales, Welsh county of Flintshire across ...

, England. Pentagram 204 Fifth Ave with Gormley

In 2010, the ''Event Horizon'' sculptures were installed in New York City at sites around

Madison Square Madison Square is a public square formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for Founding Father James Madison, the fourth president of the United St ...

, as far downtown as Union Square and as far uptown as the

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story, Art Deco-style supertall skyscraper in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its n ...

. The 27 fiberglass figures were placed on setbacks and tops of buildings, while the four cast iron figures were on the ground in

Madison Square Park Madison Square is a public square formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for Founding Father James Madison, the fourth president of the United St ...

. The installation was sponsored by the Madison Square Park Conservancy. The 2012 installation in

and the 2015–16 show in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

are the same as the London design, presented by

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partnered with K11 Art Foundation.

Reception

Critic Howard Halle said of it that "Using distance and attendant shifts of scale within the very fabric of the city, 'Event Horizon''creates a metaphor for urban life and all the contradictory associations – alienation, ambition, anonymity, fame – it entails." Both in New York, London and Hong Kong, the figures were mistaken as suicide attempts. The installation's display at

Chater House , image = Chater House 2008.jpg , image_size = 200px , caption = Chater House viewed from Connaught Road Central , completion_date = , location = 7-9 Connaught Road Central, 10-12 Chater Road, Cent ...

in Hong Kong was cancelled when US investment bank

JPMorgan JPMorgan Chase & Co. (stylized as JPMorganChase) is an American multinational finance corporation headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. It is the largest bank in the United States, and the world's largest bank by mar ...

, which has offices in the 30-storey skyscraper, asked its landlord,

Hongkong Land Hongkong Land (HKL) is a property investment, management and development group with commercial and residential property interests across Asia. It owns and manages some 850,000 sq. m. of office and retail property in Asia, principally in Hong K ...

– the sponsor of ''Event Horizon'' – to cancel its support for the show after bank employee Dennis Li Junjie jumped to his death from the building's roof in 2014.Cristina Ruiz (10 May 2014)
Gormley’s Hong Kong installation cancelled after banker’s suicide
''

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''.

Artist's interpretation

Gormley said of the London installation that "it was great to see an individual or groups of people pointing at the horizon. This transfer of the stillness of sculpture to the stillness of an observer is exciting to me: reflexivity becoming shared." Of the New York site he said that "Within the condensed environment of Manhattan's topography, the level of tension between the palpable, the perceivable and the imaginable is heightened because of the density and scale of the buildings" and that in this context, the project should "activate the skyline in order to encourage people to look around. In this process of looking and finding, or looking and seeking, one perhaps re-assesses one's own position in the world and becomes aware of one's status of embedment."

In popular culture

One of the figures from ''Event Horizon'' was featured in the opening credits of the 2008 first episode of the British TV series '' Ashes to Ashes''.

References

External links