HELSINKI.- The human body and its relationship to space have been central to Antony Gormley’s practice throughout his long career. Hold explores the way the body conforms to the constraints of architecture, how imagination or perception can extend the body’s limits, and whether art can challenge the authority of architecture.
Hold animates the unique spaces of Steven Holl’s Kiasma by including whole room installations and individual sculptures that exist between the condition of architecture and the body. A series of Body Buildings constructed entirely of cardboard invite visitors to crawl their way through while other works like Clearing and Run prompt them to bow down, step over, or circle around them. Light, a fundamental element of Holl’s original vision for Kiasma, also plays a central role in Gormley’s exhibition with natural light flooding the galleries through the large skylights.
“Gormley’s works insist on physical encounter. At a time when work, social interaction, and even the consumption of culture are increasingly taking place on digital platforms, it feels rewarding to slow down and be genuinely present. When you crawl inside a sculpture, you inevitably become aware of yourself and your body,” says Kiira Miesmaa, Director of Kiasma.
“I want this exhibition to engage with sculpture not just as something that occupies space, but as the medium in which we move, breathe and feel,” says Antony Gormley.
The curators of the exhibition are Simon Friese & Marie Nipper, Creator Projects.
Antony Gormley is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space. His work has been widely exhibited throughout the UK and internationally with exhibitions most lately at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (2026); Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2025); Museum SAN, Wonju (2025); Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague (2024); Muse Rodin, Paris (2023); Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg (2022); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (2022); National Gallery Singapore, Singapore (2021) and Schauwerk Sindelfingen, Sindelfingen (2021).
Gormley was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, the South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999, the Bernhard Heiliger Award for Sculpture in 2007, the Obayashi Prize in 2012 and the Praemium Imperiale in 2013. In 1997 he was made an Officer of the British Empire, and a knight in the 2014 New Year’s Honours list. In 2025 he was appointed a Companion of Honour for his services to art in the King’s Birthday Honours list. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, an Honorary Doctor of the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity and Jesus Colleges, Cambridge. Gormley has been a Royal Academician since 2003.
