Antony Gormley’s show Time Horizon, originally created in 2006 for the Parco Archeologico di Scolacium in Sicily, is now at Houghton Hall in Norfolk until October. It consists of 100 of Gormley’s signature male figures placed around the grounds of the hall, all positioned so that they are on a horizontal plane level with the one figure placed within the hall itself, which sets the datum level for the whole installation.
Levelling across an ancient topography
I was among several dozen people attending the press preview on 12 April. We were all given a book outlining the topographical development of the Houghton Hall site since long before the hall itself was built in the 1720s by Sir Robert Walpole. In the park today, majestic avenues of fine trees radiate out from the hall, framing the carefully designed and curated landscape.
To maintain Gormley’s horizontal principle, some figures are therefore buried in the ground – some up to the neck – while others are on plinths of varying heights. They are almost identical, each cast from one of 23 life-size moulds, created over a year, of the naked Gormley himself. Some are within copses or woodland, others stand surveying the park around them.
Gormley in space
Gormley’s work often occupies an extended space. His 1998 Angel of the North extends upwards as much as out, towering over a major road junction and commemorating the industrial history of Gateshead. The permanent installation Another Place, on the other hand, is spread expansively across Merseyside’s Crosby beach, the repeated figures caught in the tidal ebb and flow. Interviewed in The Guardian in 2005, Gormley explained “I have been interested in asking what is the nature of the space a human being inhabits. What I try to show is the space where the body was, not to represent the body itself.”
During the pandemic, the reviewer Gabrielle Schwarz encountered one of Gormley’s Resolution figures in the emptier streets of the City of London. In a long review, she explored with the artist his thinking about art in different spaces, and his belief in the healing power of art.
About his Houghton Hall installation, Gormley is keen to emphasise that the viewer is integral to the artwork. “My ambition for this show 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.”
Critical voices
Gormley has gained wide recognition both in the UK and around the world. He has permanent works at Lake Ballard in Australia and on a Dutch polder. His installation Event Horizon perched human figures – Gormley’s self-casts again – on prominent buildings in London, New York, São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. Reception was mixed, especially when calls were made to emergency services by those who thought they were witnessing an imminent suicide. In Hong Kong the display was cancelled when a man jumped to his death from one of the proposed locations.
Alert, created by Gormley in 2022 for Imperial College London, drew objections from students. Gormley describes the figure as “balancing on the balls of the feet while squatting on its haunches”, but students described it as “phallic”, and on first viewing a photo of it, many might not disagree.
Michael Glover, in an unflattering review of Gormley’s 2019 retrospective at the Royal Academy, describes Gormley as “a man who believes in the art of spectacle”. The Houghton Hall show certainly offers a spectacle. For me, it didn’t work as intended.
Perhaps I lack imagination
I was supposed to experience being in a field. I did, but it was the stunning park of Houghton Hall, just as spring was bursting forth among hedges, elaborate topiary and lawns that were all sharp and evenly trimmed.
I have to say that I have great sympathy with the Imperial College students. As a woman, I was made uncomfortable by repeatedly coming face to face with the fact that the most prominent feature of Gormley’s figures is his penis – and of course we know it’s his. It’s not small. And I wondered about the feelings of the men viewing it – men can be sensitive if there’s any hint of comparison.
The levelling idea was interesting and thought-provoking, highlighting the lie of the land around the park. And it was quite a relief from time to time to encounter a figure buried up to above the groin…
Other works at Houghton
It was delightful, however, to explore some of the other works displayed, several of which were at best advantage on a bright spring day. James Turrell’s unexpected and enchanting Skyspace: Seldom Seen framed a square of slowly moving light clouds against the blue sky. Anish Kapoor’s polished granite Untitled offered an intriguingly inverted reflection of the park, but not of the figure standing near it, my friend the sculptor Vanessa Pooley.
Before enjoying the excellent lunch very generously offered by our host, Lord Cholmondeley, we sought out the beguilingly titled More really shiny things that don’t mean anything. Like the Turrell, and Houghton Hut by Turner Prize winner Rachel Whiteread, it nestles in one of the copses. A globe of random metallic items glistened in the bright sunlight. Was the title a reflection, I wondered, on the way art is sometimes described in words designed to tell us what we should think of it?
Time Horizon by Antony Gormley runs at Houghton Hall until 31 October.
Other events taking place this weekend (tickets available at time of writing)
Suffolk
Hacheston, the Village Hall, IP13 0DW, Friday 26 April, 7pm. Local author Sarah Hardy will discuss her novel The Walled Garden, set in 1946 on the Suffolk coast. Tickets on the door £9 (cash or card), reserve your seat at hachestonvillagehall@yahoo.com. Bar opens 7pm.
Needham Market, The Swan, IP6 8AL, Sunday 28 April, 3–6pm. Acoustic session.
From The Swan’s Facebook page: “On the afternoon of the last Sunday of the month, three hours of acoustic music, and maybe some spoken word, lightly overseen by JP. A lot of folk tunes from many traditions and a variety of instruments, and all acoustic. Enjoy Sunday afternoon with music and beer. Come along and get involved.”
Bungay, St Mary’s Church, 10am Saturday 27 April to 4pm Monday 6 May, exhibition Colour and Light. Paintings by Alfred Munnings, in collaboration with the Alfred Munnings Museum in Dedham. Free entry, but donations welcome.
Norfolk
Norwich, St John the Baptist Catholic Cathedral, NR2 2PA, Saturday 27 April, 7.30pm: Bach and Handel: Music for Leipzig, London and Rome. Keswick Hall Choir and Norwich Baroque perform Handel’s Zadok the Priest and Dixit Dominus, and Bach’s O Jesu Christ mein’s Lebens Licht and Magnificat. Tickets via Eventbrite or at the door.
Cambridgeshire
Chesterton, St Andrew’s Church Cambridge CB4 1DT, Sunday 28 April at 6pm: Chela & Buska, Spring Fervour! Georgian Music. Free with retiring collection.
Essex
Little Bentley beer festival, St Mary’s Church, Friday 24–Sunday 26, near Colchester. Entrance £10 including souvenir glass (£6 if the glass is returned).
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