Hot 50: ANTONY GORMLEY

Over the past 25 years the artist Antony Gormley has transformed the human image through sculpture, often using his own body as the subject.

He has created many large-scale installations, which have been exhibited all over the world. In the 2009 Hospital 100 poll Gormley was elected as the most influential ‘established’ art and design figure.

The Turner Prize-winner put a big question mark after the sentence ‘Could you be art?’ with his One & Other initiative from July 2009 for Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth.

The display aimed to change perceptions of public art as the empty plinth saw 100 days of continuous occupation – 2400 people took to the platform to perform (or not, in some cases) for 60 minutes of notoriety. While the project caused debate about art, it also made Gormley question what he does and what art is.

Gormley continues to be interesting to the industry, extending into design by chairing the 2010 Brit Insurance design awards at the Design Museum. Also, his collaboration in March with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and 17 monks from the Shaolin Temple, which won the Ballenttanz Production of the Year award, will return to Sadler’s Wells theatre in London.