Firmament, meaning the heavens or the sky, is a sculpture by artist Sir Antony Gormley. It is constructed from 1019 steel balls held in space by 1770 steel elements of varying lengths. These are welded together to create an irregular, polygonal structure that dissolves and resolves in space. In form, the sculpture resembles a map of a celestial constellation, perhaps recalling the Engonasin Hercules constellation known as the ‘kneeling man’. Walking around and through the work, an enormous kneeling figure comes into view. The structure was designed by scanning the artist’s own body.

Gormley told art historian Ernst Gombrich that his large body form sculptures, such as Firmament, were an attempt ‘to materialise the sensation of that inner space of the body… an attempt to realise embodiment, without really worrying too much about mimesis, about representation in a traditional way.’

Firmament was originally installed in the basement gallery of White Cube, Mason’s Yard, London, for Gormley’s solo exhibition (2008). In the gallery, the work pressed up against the edges of the space; now at Jupiter Artland it is open to the trees, sky and landscape that surround it.

‘Sculpture does not need shelter, either intellectual or physical, and can stand in the elements, encouraging dialogue between human time, the time of the seasons and the time of geology.’ Antony Gormley

Biography

Over four decades, Sir Antony Gormley has revitalised the depiction of the human form in sculpture. His practice is a radical investigation of the body as a place of memory, history and transformation.

Throughout his career, Gormley has investigated the dynamics between the individual and the collective in large-scale installations such as Allotment (1997) and Another Place (2005). Perhaps his most celebrated work, Angel of the North (1995-98), is a monumental piece that has become a landmark in contemporary British sculpture. Field (1991 onwards), an assembly of thousands of small clay figures crafted by local communities, has been staged internationally on multiple occasions, engaging diverse populations across four continents.

Sir Antony Gormley was born in London, UK, in 1950, where he continues to reside and work. He has participated in major group exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1982; 1986), Documenta VIII in Kassel, Germany (1987), and the Sydney Biennale (2006). Notable solo exhibitions include showcases at Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon (2004), the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England (2003), and the National History Museum in Beijing, China (2003). He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994 and made an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1997. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and has been a Royal Academician since 2003. He was the recipient of the Obayashi Prize in 2012 and is the 2013 Praemium Imperiale Laureate for Sculpture. Gormley was knighted in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to the arts. For Room, he received the 2015 Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture.