Antony Gormley is one of the world’s most celebrated artists working today.
To commemorate Mayflower 400 and the opening of The Box, his sculpture LOOK II is permanently installed on West Hoe Pier and forms part of the inaugural contemporary art exhibition, Making It. The site in Plymouth where Sir Francis Chichester landed in 1967 as the first and fastest person to sail single-handed around the world by the clipper route in the Gipsy Moth.
LOOK II is a figure made from 22 blocks in one cast iron form, stacked like a house of cards but also substantial, rather like the stones of Stonehenge. This work aims to evoke the yearning to travel across the horizon in order to establish a new life in another place.
Though singular, the work refers to the collective body and our shared, built environment. It is the artist's intention to transmit our old-world admiration for the skyscrapers of New York while linking them to our megalithic past.
Migration is integral to the evolution of our species and LOOK II expresses the tensions between going and staying as well as the twin human desires of making roots and conversely, the yearning for adventure and a life free from the constraints of history.
Commissioned by The Box and Plymouth City Council.
With the kind support of Antony Gormley Studio and White Cube Gallery.