Antony Gormley Monograph Explores His Relationship with the Body and Cityscapes
Antony Gormley: Body Buildings” (SKIRA, Oct. 7, 2025)
For sculptor Antony Gormley, the inquiry isn’t focused on how a body adjusts to a constructed space, but instead on the process of constructing a body initially. Over his extensive career, the British artist has approached this essential question from multiple perspectives, primarily through his selected materials. His body of work is filled with sculptures made from clay and iron, many displaying elements of the human figure while not being entirely representational. These pieces are the central highlights of Gormley’s new monograph published by Italian house SKIRA.
Scheduled for release in October, “Antony Gormley: Body Buildings” documents the artist’s recent solo exhibition sharing the same title at Galleria Continua in Beijing. Within its pages, we observe the monumental pieces that formed the essence of the exhibition, showcased through comprehensive installation photography alongside fresh insights from art critic Hou Hanru and historian Stephen Greenblatt. Similar to a Gormley sculpture, these distinct components unite to “question our species’ connection to a world that is increasingly vertical,” according to the publisher.
At the core of the book is Resting Place II, an immense creation from 2024 that epitomizes Gormley’s artistic practice overall. The work features 132 terracotta figures, each crafted from angular, block-like elements. Some figures extend across the floor, gazing up at the ceiling of the gallery, while others curl into tight spheres, minimizing their form to such an extent that they become even more abstract and indistinct. Regardless of their arrangement, each sculpture unmistakably holds architectural qualities, indicating that the human form and urban development influence one another to the extent of potential fusion. Whether this fusion is positive or negative is left for contemplation, with Gormley abstaining from providing his own viewpoint.
“Observing Antony’s bricks scattered throughout the gallery as if they were structures or their remnants, we are prompted to contemplate the genesis of things, on where civilizations commence and conclude,” Mario Cristiani, co-founder of Galleria Continua, writes in the introduction of the monograph.
Greenblatt further states in his essay: “For a novel form of existence to arise, the entire being does not need to transform; merely the components must be rearranged. When we marvel at the figures in Resting Place II, each formed by reconfiguring the blocks, we witness a prototype for the emergence of life itself.”
In addition to sculptural works, Body Buildings includes Gormley’s drawings, with many previously unpublished. The artist’s drawings are especially stirring, utilizing materials like walnut ink and chicory to blood and linseed oil in ways that again evoke the earth, the body, and their interconnections. Notably, drawing has been a consistent daily practice for Gormley, serving as a “laboratory” for the themes he investigates in other forms. The artist has even expressed that a “day without drawing is a day squandered.”
A photographic essay by Gormley rounds out the book, documenting his continual interaction and involvement with China and the surrounding areas. Here, we find archival images from his initial research visit to the nation in 1995 alongside significant projects like Asian Field from 2003, Event Horizon from 2007, and Host from 2016.
Antony Gormley: Body Buildings will be published on October 7, 2025. The book is presently available for pre-order through Bookshop and SKIRA.
Antony Gormley’s forthcoming monograph, Body Buildings, investigates how the artist employs natural materials and human forms to challenge constructed environments.
“Resting Place II” (2024), at the “Body Buildings” exhibition, Galleria Continua, Beijing, 2024-25. (Photo: Huang Shaoli)
“Shame” (2023), at the “Body Buildings” exhibition, Galleria Continua, Beijing, 2024-25. (Photo: Huang Shaoli)
“Buttress” (2023), at the “Body Buildings” exhibition, Galleria Continua, Beijing, 2024-25. (Photo: Huang Shaoli)
Installation view of the “Body Buildings” exhibition at Galleria Continua, Beijing, 2024-25. (Photo: Huang Shaoli)
The book follows a solo exhibition of the identical name held earlier this year at Galleria Continua in Beijing.
“Resting Place II” (2024), at the “Body Buildings” exhibition, Galleria Continua, Beijing, 2024-25. (Photo: Huang Shaoli)
“Resting Place II” (2024), at the “Body Buildings” exhibition, Galleria Continua, Beijing, 2024-25. (Photo: Huang Shaoli)
“Resting Place II” (