9th June 2022 – (Hong Kong) M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District, announces that one of its opening exhibitions, Antony Gormley: Asian Field, will close on Sunday, 3rd July 2022. The museum now invites visitors to seize the last chance to view the scale of humanity at the exhibition.
In 2003, British artist Antony Gormley invited around 300 people at different ages from Xiangshan village (now Huadong Town in Guangzhou city) to make approximately 200,000 clay figurines over five days. There were three simple instructions: each figurine had to be hand-sized, capable of standing up, and have two eyes. Otherwise, each maker was free to improvise. As an installation, Asian Field is meant to be experienced from a single point of view. As the visitors gaze across a sea of figures, they appear to look back.
This installation belongs to Field, a series that Gormley began in 1989. Other versions of Field have been produced in Australia, North and South America, the United Kingdom, and Europe. In each location, the artist uses locally sourced clay and enlists local communities to mould the figures by hand. By far the biggest and most ambitious work in the series, Asian Field reflects China’s vast territory and large population.
This presentation also features the work of photographer Zhang Hai’er, who captured and documented the making of Asian Field. Zhang paired each maker and one of their works in a series of photo portraits. The portrait subjects stared intently at the camera, allowing us to imagine how their character and attitude might be transferred into the figures they created.
The Presenting Sponsor of Antony Gormley: Asian Field is J. P. Morgan.
Please refer to M+ website for more details of the exhibition. Online entry reservation for M+ galleries are required for access to Antony Gormley: Asian Field.