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At the weekend I ventured south of the river (not my usual territory) to Maltby Street food market followed by a visit to the White Cube Bermondsey, where there was an exhibition of new works by Antony Gormley. The exhibition aims to challenge the physical possibilities of the gallery space with an ambitious larger-than-life model of his sculptures, which visitors can enter through a ‘foot’ and journey through its inter-connected internal chambers. Fabricated from 100 tonnes of weathering sheet steel, the work is both sculpture and building, human in form but at no point visible as a total figure. After seeing similar works of his at the White Cube in Hoxton, I was glad to see Gormley had taken it a step further and created more of an architectural intervention. The internal chambers demanded the visitor to adjust their pace and bend their bodies to its awkward heights, guided by fractions of light above. Another interesting room proved to be a space dedicated to Gormley’s working models from 2002 to the present day.
The building itself is also worthy of a mention. White Cube Bermondsey is the largest of the gallery’s three London sites and dates back to the 1970s when it was used as a warehouse. The building was converted into a gallery by London-based Casper Mueller Kneer Architects. The 70s dark brick block has been modernised by a white mesh canopy and a set of huge glass doors at the entrance. Inside, there are three main exhibition spaces, private viewing rooms, an auditorium, a bookshop as well as three smaller galleries, collectively known as the ‘North Galleries. Internally, the gallery spaces live up to the name of ‘White Cube’, with white boxes and polished concrete floors. The variety of rooms proved ideal for Gormley’s sculptures, the full effect of the human-proportioned silhouettes appearing as you look back down the long central corridor.
