Antony Gormley Sculpture

Artist Antony Gormley to speak in Boston

BOSTON, MA -- Celebrated English artist Antony Gormley who sculpted the twin symbiotic figures staring at one another through the glass front entance of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum will be the guest speaker Friday, Nov. 12 at 6:30 p.m. for the Paul J. Cronin Memorial Lecture.

Free for the first time, the lecture will be hosted by the Massachusetts College of Art and Design at the Tower Auditorium at 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston. The event has limited seating on a first come, first served basis.

Last March, the Lincoln sculpture park and museum aquired Gormley's "Reflection II," which comprises a matched pair of 6-foot, 3-inch tall cast iron figures set on either side of the museum's front window.

Visitors are left to decide what the enigmatic sculptor means. Does it suggest existential despair, creative solidarity or an unresolvable enigma?

Upon its purchase, deCordova Director Dennis Kois said acquiring Gormley's sculpture as the museum's first international aquisition "signals the seriousness of our intent to build an exciting, engaging and ambitious sculpture program."

The Cronin Memorial Lectures were established in 1981 to examine changing attitudes toward 20th and 21st century art.

Senior Curator Nick Capasso said Gormley was "among the world's most significant contemporary artists."

He said Gormley often casts his own body to create sculpture that "investigates the human body as a place of memory and transformation."

"(He) has arguably done more to advance the tradition of the human figure in outdoor sculpture than any other artist since Auguste Rodin or Henry Moore," Capasso said.

Born in London in 1950, Gormley is one of England's most celebrated contemporary sculptors.