Shaping the World

In this wide-ranging, thought-provoking and sometimes provocative new book, leading sculptor Antony Gormley, informed and energised by a lifetime of making, and art critic and historian Martin Gayford, explore sculpture as a transnational art form with its own compelling history. The authors’ lively conversations and explorations make unexpected connections across time and media. Sculpture has been practised by every culture throughout the world and stretches back into our distant past. The first surviving shaped stones may even predate the advent of language. Evidently, the desire to carve, mould, bend, chip away, weld, suspend, balance – to transform a vast array of materials and light into new shapes and forms – runs deep in our psyche and is a fundamental part of our human journey and need for expression. With more than 300 spectacular illustrations, Shaping the World juxtaposes a rich variety of works – from the famous Lowenmensch or Lion Man, c. 35,000 BCE to Michelangelo’s luminous Pietà in Rome, the Terracotta Warriors in China to Rodin’s The Kiss, Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades, Olafur Eliasson’s extraordinary Weather Project and Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus, and Tomas Saraceno’s ongoing Aerocene project, as well as examples of Gormley’s own work. Antony Gormley and Martin Gayford take into account materials and techniques, and consider overarching themes such as light, mortality and our changing world. Above all, they discuss their view of sculpture as a form of physical thinking capable of altering the way people feel, and they invite us to look at sculpture we encounter – and more broadly the world around us – in a completely different way.

'Very informative' - V&A Magazine, 'The sculptor and the art critic have redefined the [art] form ' - Sunday Times, 'The quality of production does full justice to the superb content …there’s a strong sense of a continuous narrative driven by shared enthusiasm and common, though not always parallel, ground' - artbookreview.com, 'I lost myself in your book – it seemed to be about my world' - Carlo Rovelli, physicist and author of 'There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important', 'If you want to rethink your ideas about sculpture, this fascinating book will give you pause for thought on just about every page ... a mighty, lusciously produced tome ... You can lose yourself in just looking at the illustrations' - Financial Times

Sir Antony Gormley is a distinguished British artist and sculptor perhaps best known for his huge Angel of the North in Gateshead. He won the Turner Prize in 1994 and has been a Royal Academician since 2003. Gormley is one of the most critically respected artists working internationally, with works that have universal resonance. Martin Gayford is art critic for The Spectator and the author of acclaimed books on Van Gogh, Constable and Michelangelo. He is the author of Man with a Blue Scarf, Rendez-vous with Art and A Bigger Message. He has collaborated with David Hockney on A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney and A History of Pictures, and has co-written a volume of travels and conversations with Philippe de Montebello: Rendez-vous with Art.