RA Magazine Blog: Antony Gormley RA at the Hermitage

Alastair Sooke visited Antony Gormley RA's Hermitage exhibition and reviewed it in the Winter issue of RA Magazine. Here, in the artist's own words, he describes the process of putting the show together.

Venus gazes at Dionysus as he raises his cup in the foreground, while the Soranzo Eros (third from left) looks longingly at the helmeted Athena (far right) in Antony Gormley's rearrangement of the classical statues in the Hall of Dionysus at the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Photo Yuri Molodkovets.

In his re-hang of the Dionysus Hall at the Hermitage, which contains the museum's classical sculpture collection Gormley has taken the sculptures off their plinths and placed them at ground level, bringing the viewer face to face with them. In this audio clip, he explains why:

Gormley has installed 17 of his new sculptures in an adjacent room. Here, he describes the contrast between these and the classical works:

Still Standing: a contemporary intervention in the classical collection State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Photography: Yuri Molodkovets.

Finally, Gormley explains the high-tech process in which he transforms a mould of his own body into the 'pixellated' cast-iron forms of his sculptures:

• Antony Gormley RA, Still Standing: A Contemporary Intervention in the Classical Collection is at The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, 23 September-15 January 2012

• Antony Gormley RA's collaboration with choreographer and composer Hofesh Shechter, Survivor, is at the Barbican Theatre, 12 - 14 January 2012

• Royal Academy of Arts