SHELF II
The cast iron sculptural work, entitled SHELF II, by renowned British sculptor Antony Gormley stands in a public realm of Taikoo Place for the Hong Kong community to experience and be a part of their daily life.
Surrounded by high-rise office and residential towers, Gormley’s sculpture evokes a curious, searching body, one that is thoughtful, quizzical and contemplative. By being still and silent, sculpture interacts with and makes more evident the movement and manners of the people that surround it. Unlike figurative statues, this work is reflexive, and while it does derive from a moment of captured human time – a scan of Gormley’s body – it does not represent a particular person, but invites us to work with it, to imaginatively inhabit it. A body, like a building, is a temporary resting place for the spirit. The work is called SHELF II because we, like birds nesting on cliffs, have to find ledges to rest on. In being so, the work may help to register our own position within the city and, more generally, within time and space.
This work deliberately shows signs of oxidisation and over time it will react and blend into the urban life, further becoming part of Hong Kong’s transforming landscape.