Review of Antony Gormley: WITNESS Early Lead Works at White Cube Mason’s Yard

I lasted 20 minutes. I was completely out of breath. My legs were shaking, my heart was pounding, and I couldn't take this intimacy anymore.

When I first stepped into the gallery, I had no idea what awaited me. I assumed it would be another show I went to because someone said it was… "rough", which usually meant it wouldn't be rough enough. But I was wrong. I was so wrong.

I went down to the basement with two other visitors, but after a minute or two, they abandoned me. I decided stubbornly to stay, determined not to let the gallery control me. Yet, resistance was futile. Silent suffering became my companion and the masochistic thrill I secretly craved flooded every corner of the room. My skirt was too short, jumper too red, jacket too loud, tights too sheer, and my breaths were embarrassingly quick. Electricity hung in the air. The artworks were barely present, completely overshadowed by the tension between myself and the ever-watchful guards. The instruction to maintain a one-meter distance from the artworks forced me into intimate proximity with these serious-faced men and one woman pacing meticulously from corner to corner.

The worst thing was that… there was nothing to look at. Metal figures without faces, fingers, or distinguishing features occupied the space alongside an oddly placed textile piece. Details were impossible to discern from my enforced distance. Each step closer risked provoking the guards' silent reprimands. Yet, just as I submitted to the silent authority and headed for the exit, I noticed one metal figure provocatively exposing its testicles like a perverse reward for enduring the oppressive emptiness.

It felt like submerging into oblivion, desperately trying to decode an unfamiliar language. I thrive in these intense, charged exhibitions, eagerly listening for the whispers of the hidden gods lurking behind gallery walls.

The guards, typically "invisible" fixtures, suddenly became central figures. While talking to one of them, he, as one might expect, admitted that many visitors asked if they were performers. I asked, "Are you not?" He laughed, leaving me unconvinced. It took him a while to find the right answer, claiming it was because these works were so important. I had a feeling that wasn't the case at all. I went upstairs and asked the ladies at the desk the same question. One of them said it was because of the nature of the material that it was fragile. But when I challenged this, saying that they had shown ceramics in the past and there were very few guards, the second lady spoke up. She wasn't happy that I kept harping about that subject as if questioning the security of the artworks was something I should be ashamed of. I wasn't. I felt as if my balls were bigger than the figure's downstairs. She finally admitted that White Cube does not own the pieces and that they are from a private collection. Having so many guards is not part of their policy, but the owner requested it.

The realisation hit me hard. It turned out that it was not the gallery that ordered me to worship itself as a god. It was the collector. It was about the domination of the viewer. And I felt dominated. For some reason, I have the distinct impression that the collector was a man. Was the exhibition really about the historical significance the curator tried to highlight in the press release? I felt the collector’s gaze. He looked at me from toe to head and repeated it a few times. Then he stared into my eyes, saying, "I'll tell you how to move, and you'll dance for me."

When leaving the exhibition, my mind was consumed by the inappropriate pleasure I'd experienced in that cavernous basement beneath the White Cube Masons Yard. I longed to return—perhaps it was a twisted form of Stockholm syndrome.

I read the exhibition text, and I felt devastated. It was filled with sterile academic language, extinguishing the exhilarating tension I yearned to relieve.

I wish I had recorded my reactions to some parts of the exhibition text so that you could better understand how emotional I felt while reading it.

"By cutting through these grounded figures, Home and World II (1986–96) emphasizes a striking verticality." (My face shows disbelief.)

"A singular striding form, its head is replaced by an elongated, house-shaped structure extending over five metres horizontally, punctuated at either end by small windows that reveal an interior void" (Me staring intensely into the black hole, pondering the idea of ​​nothingness and infinity.)

"Despite its apparent forward motion – one foot placed before the other – the figure remains rooted, embodying the tension between the body as both sanctuary and a vessel of perpetual displacement, engaging notions of habitation, constraint and the reciprocal shaping of body and environment." (Me squinting and shaking my head in enlightenment at how theatrically this central figure puts one foot in front of the other. Me pondering what "sanctuary and vessel of eternal displacement" really means.)

"Unlike the seated or prone bodies in the gallery, it shares its elevated spatial orientation with Blanket Drawing I (1983)." (My eyes wide open as I couldn't understand this artwork's spatial orientation!)

"To make this work, Gormley pressed white clay into a hospital blanket around an empty silhouette of his body lying prone in the untouched wool." ( Me trying to understand the connection between the hospital blanket and the rest of the works made of lead, steel, oil and air.)

"Lifted from the floor and pinned to the wall, the impression undergoes a perceptual shift..." (ah! What a perpetual shift! I can only dream of seeing that movement! How technicians install that wall-based artwork. Their muscles flexing, their arms lifting, tripping over material...) – "...what once suggested rest is now reanimated, the figure's head breaking beyond the blanket's edge like a swimmer gasping for air." (Me trying not to imagine that swimmer's lips.)

I completely agree with another sentence in the press release: Together, the works on display serve as propositions for embodiment, vulnerability, space, and presence. 

Embodiment: In this exhibition, you were hyper-aware of your body.

Vulnerability: In this exhibition, you were surrounded by eight security guards in black suits watching your every move.

Space: In this exhibition, you felt that even though this space is 100 or something square meters, you were squeezed into a small cube.

Presence: In this exhibition, you were forced to quickly turn your presence into absence as you couldn't shake the feeling that you were interrupting the sanctity of these naked works of art.

This exhibition dripped with tension, intentionally heightened by the overwhelming security presence and austere white surroundings. Trapped for nearly twenty intense minutes, I became acutely aware of my vulnerability among silent, authoritative figures. The room lacked colour, except for my furious red jumper. My stubbornness refused to relinquish control, even as the unseen collector exerted an irresistible dominance over my every breath and step. This was more than feeling welcome—it was about feeling too welcome, seduced, and utterly unable to resist.

10 out of 10

If you know the collector, please send him this review. I desire to talk to him.

Dates

23 April – 8 June 2025

Location

White Cube Mason’s Yard

25 – 26 Mason's YardLondon SW1Y 6BU