Antony Gormley's sculptures in dialogue with Seoul, inside and out

Installation view of Antony Gormley's two-part exhibition, "Inextricable," at White Cube Seoul / Courtesy of White Cube

If you wander past White Cube this fall, in the heart of southern Seoul’s busy Cheongdam neighborhood, you’ll come face-to-face with a rusted iron humanoid.

It isn’t tucked to the side or raised on a pedestal, but squarely in the middle of the walkway, as if the city itself must flow around its stubborn presence.

You might bump into it if you’re not careful. You might pause and wonder: “What is this thing doing in my world?”

Antony Gormley, the artist behind the piece, imagines the sculpture answering back: “And what, exactly, are you doing in my world?”

“It’s important to me to place this ‘rock’ in the stream of daily life,” the British sculptor said during his visit to Korea, which coincided with Frieze Seoul. This visit marked his second return to Korea in a single year, following the June opening of “Ground,” his vast underground dome at Museum SAN in Gangwon Province.

British sculptor Antony Gormley / Courtesy of White Cube and Thaddaeus Ropac

In Seoul, the lone street-side figure is part of Gormley’s first solo exhibition in the city, “Inextricable,” which unfolds simultaneously across White Cube and Thaddaeus Ropac galleries.

“I think a sculpture is a thing in the world of things that doesn’t play the same game of being an instrument of your negotiation,” he continued.

Still and silent, a sculpture simply stands. We are the ones who must walk around it, and in that small detour, it provokes reflection on the rhythm of our own motion and the place we occupy in the world.

“There is a distinction between my work and the statue, which has served power in history. This is not a military hero, confident in the values it represents. A sculpture is a reflective instrument that invites a kind of participatory skepticism, asking a question of where we belong.”

Installation view of Antony Gormley's two-part exhibition, "Inextricable," at Thaddaeus Ropac Seoul / Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac gallery ― London, Paris, Salzburg, Milan, Seoul

Seoul offers a charged backdrop for Gormley’s inquiry. As Korea’s most populous city, it has undergone a dramatic metamorphosis from postwar devastation to dense urban jungle within decades.

“There’s something really extraordinary about the sense of regeneration [here] after the cruel years of the civil war in the early '50s, after the decades of Japanese occupation,” he said. “There is a sense of making a world, expressed in the very infrastructure and the city’s enormous physical robustness.”

Here, the urban topography does more than surround us; it choreographs our bodies, dictating how we move, walk, sit and even hold ourselves in daily life.

Gormley explores this entanglement between the body as an urban animal and the city it inhabits in two different ways across the venues.

Antony Gormley's "PLUCK 2" (2024) at White Cube Seoul / Courtesy of White Cube

At White Cube, six life-sized metal and concrete statues, cast from the very materials that define the modern metropolis, take over the pavement. One stands sentinel amid the flow of pedestrians; another sits with legs outstretched between two buildings; a third is wedged awkwardly against the gallery’s glass facade, its position recalling that of the mannequins in a shop window.

If White Cube’s pieces engage directly with the pulse of the streets, at Thaddaeus Ropac, the sculptures turn inward toward the city’s architecture, both visible and concealed. “Extended Strapworks,” with looping steel ribbons stretching across floors and walls, traces the lines of the space and reveals how the building’s geometry guides our movement.

Meanwhile, “Knotworks” evokes the city’s hidden connective systems of plumbing, circuitry and transit routes, inviting viewers to follow the networks that structure urban life behind the scenes.

“Inextricable” runs until Oct. 18 at White Cube and Nov. 8 at Thaddaeus Ropac.

Antony Gormley's "Knotworks" at Thaddaeus Ropac Seoul / Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac gallery ― London, Paris, Salzburg, Milan, Seoul