British artist Antony Gormley has developed a spectacular new installation especially for the large Deichtorhalle: ‘Horizon Field Hamburg’, which will be on view during the documenta.
Between 27 April and 9 September 2012, visitors will enter the north hall of the Deichtorhallen to be confronted by a space that is almost 4,000 sq. m. in size, nearly 19 meters high, and virtually empty.
‘It is critical that the experience of the space is utterly clear and that in there we see a void, clean building reimagined as a kind of gymnasium for mind and body’, says Gormley.
In this open space a vast, black, reflective structure will float nearly 7.5 metres above the floor, inviting adventure. The suspended, slightly oscillating platform exploits the structural potential and architectural context of the Deichtorhallen building, now over a century old, taking visitors into a new spatiotemporal matrix.
The space below the work will be in shadow, sparsely illuminated by light that comes from the skylights far above. Here visitors can tarry and listen to the steps and voices of the invisible people above them.
Every quality of the day or night, every sound and accident of light will become part of the work itself.
‘There is a double bind here. We have a real choice of how we wish to participate’, Gormley explains. ‘We can stay in an underworld or climb skywards. Both scenarios put the human subject into a dynamic position of jeopardy’.
‘Horizon Field Hamburg’ will provoke an experience of reorientation and re-connection with walking, feeling, hearing and seeing. Individual and group experience will be mediated through vibration, sound and reflection. The entire project could be seen as a horizontal painting stretched taut in space, on which the visitor becomes a figure in a free floating, undefined ground.
