Antony Gormley’s First Permanent U.S. Public Sculpture Unveiled At Anchorage Museum
625 C Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501
1 Percent for Art
The 1 Percent for Art program of the Municipality of Anchorage has been selecting and installing artwork for Anchorage municipal buildings and schools since 1978.
“Habitat” is created from 57 stainless steel boxes stacked to depict a seated person with its arms crossed over its knees, stands 24 feet tall and weighs 37,000 pounds
Antony Gormley’s first-ever permanent, U.S. public art commission has been unveiled at the Anchorage Museum in Anchorage, Alaska. Standing 24 feet tall and weighing 37,000 pounds, “Habitat” was commissioned in honor of the Anchorage Museum’s expansion, designed by celebrated British architect David Chipperfield. Gormley’s “Habitat,” funded by the Municipality of Anchorage’s 1 Percent for Art Program, has been permanently installed on the outdoor promenade at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center.
“Habitat” is a meditation on the condition of urban man in relation to nature, a relevant topic for Alaskans whose lives are so entwined with the environment. The sculpture was created from 57 stainless steel boxes stacked to depict a seated person with its arms crossed over its knees. The artist was inspired by Anchorage’s city grid and the architecture of the Anchorage Museum’s addition by Chipperfield. The boxes were fabricated by Alaska’s largest steel fabrication facility, STEELFAB.
In describing his sculpture, Antony Gormley said: “Most of us live in cities. This work “Habitat” is a man in the form and the size of a house. This body takes a position on the building line and looks to the horizon. The mind inhabits the body, the body inhabits a house, the house inhabits a city, and the city inhabits a land. Alaska is one of the last wildernesses. This is a meditation on the human animal’s need for a very particular form of habitat.”
The sculpture sits on the street line frontage, acting as transition between the museum and the city. The sculpture introduces the museum’s collections of ethnography and art, and references the creation and development of the human habitat. The work is designed to respond to the changing light and temperature conditions of Alaska, as well as offer shelter for visitors from the wind, snow and rain.
“It is very exciting to see how this work inserts itself into the collective experience of Anchorage,” Gormley added.
The artist has explored scale throughout his career, experimenting with hand-sized, life-sized and architectural-sized objects which test the limits of spatial definition and transform the relationship between the viewer and a given site. Gormley’s work is currently installed in his U.S. public art debut, “Event Horizon.” Organized by the Madison Square Park Conservancy, the temporary installation features 31 life-size sculptures of the male form perched on rooftops, standing in parks and dotting the sidewalks of New York City’s Flatiron District and environs. “American Field,” 35,000 hand-formed terracotta homunculi toured major museums in the United States from 1991-1993. Gormley’s steel sculpture “Angel of the North” — standing 66 feet tall with a wingspan of 178 feet — has become a well known feature of Tyneside in Northern England. “Habitat” is Gormley’s first major, permanent installation in the United States and his first publicly commissioned piece of art in the U.S.
The sculpture has been funded by the Municipality’s 1 Percent for Art Program, which earmarks one percent of the available funds from a public building’s construction budget for the purpose of commissioning public art for that building. The budget for this commission was based on qualifying funds from the Anchorage Museum’s addition by architect David Chipperfield, which opened in May 2009. Gormley was chosen from a field of 35 artists from around the world by an Art Selection Jury that included museum staff, artists, municipal employees, Arts Advisory Commission, Urban Design Commission and museum expansion architects. The jury selected Gormley based on his past work and his anthropological approach to the site and the project.
www.muni.org/departments/ocpd/publicart/Pages/default.aspx
www.antonygormley.com
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Image above:
Antony Gormley’s Habitat (2010) at Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Credit: Larry Harris/Chris Arend Photography
