Gormley gives his audience a lot to chew on

British sculptor Antony Gormley [Photo by Oak Taylor-Smith/ China Daily]

Both Host and Asian Field rise 23 centimeters from the ground and use local earth.

"When you look at the reflections, the water and the earth, you end up looking at yourself ... you are obliged to think about what your relationship is with the future or the planet. This is the circuit that art can provide.

"It has nothing to do with receiving a precise message. It is not propaganda. It is not making you do or think anything. It's an invitation for you to look again," says Gormley.

He has also taken his public project Event Horizon to Hong Kong in which 31 life-size body sculptures are installed on the streets and on the roofs of commercial buildings in the Central and Western districts. The statues are either in close proximity of the crowds in the streets, or overlook highly populated cityscapes. They, however, emit a sense of loneliness and exclusion amid the hustle and bustle.

The work was first created in 2007, the year when more than half of the global population were first recorded living in the urban grid.

"This is the only sustainable future for our species - that we live in an environment of high density and high rises.

"In Hong Kong, Event Horizon is a kind of process about the condition of individuals in a city devoted to corporate culture. We've found ourselves in a paradox of position - of living closer and closer together while having less direct contact with each other," says Gormley.

He says that he is very committed to the idea of art playing its part in a collective space, because that is what art has always done. And although his many works are placed in public spaces, like the beach or the street, he doesn't like the idea of calling a category public art.

"All art is made to be shared, and all art should be capable of surviving in the public space."

linqi@chinadaily.com.cn