【英语听和读】安东尼-葛姆雷

Callum: Hello, I’m Callum Robertson and this is Entertainment.
The British sculptor 1 Antony Gormley celebrates his 57th birthday this week.
He’s a prolific 2 and popular modern sculptor. One of his most well known
pieces is the huge Angel of the North, an enormous statue which stands on a
hill to the side of one of Britain’s busiest roads in the North of England.
A feature of Gormley’s work is to make us look at the everyday world in a
different way and that is something that I experienced with a recent work of his,
Event Horizon.
 
Every day I cycle to work through the streets of London. My journey takes me
over Waterloo Bridge from where there are great views along the River
Thames. Most days I don’t see these views as usually I have my head down,
fighting the wind as I try and pedal up and over the bridge.
But some days I do stop and think how lucky I am. For many people it is an
ambition to come to London, to see these sights that I can see everyday. So
sometimes I do stop and take a look at the riverside skyline, to admire the view.
A few weeks ago I noticed something a little different. I couldn’t quite make it
out but it looked like there was a person standing 3 on top of one of the buildings
that looks over Waterloo Bridge.
In the next few days I noticed more of these ‘people’ standing on top of
buildings on both the north and the south banks of the river. Of course by this
time I had realised that they weren’t real people but they were statues, identical 
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statues of a naked human figure which seemed to be popping up all over the
river bank.
In all there were 31 and it wasn’t long before I discovered that they were all
sculptures by Antony Gormley forming a piece of public art called Event
Horizon.
Antony Gormley talked to the BBC Radio Four arts programme Front Row.
How did he describe Event Horizon them and what effect does he want it to
have?
Antony Gormley
I think it is a sort of infection of the centre of town in order to get people to look at probably
bits of London that they don’t bother to look at. I mean we’re all so busy, aren’t we. We’re all
going somewhere; we’ve all got an idea about a destination.
Callum: He describes it as a sort of infection, which is like a rash, a series of spots that
appear on your skin. The purpose of this ‘infection’ is to get people to look at
bits of London they wouldn’t normally see. To make us stop and take a pause
from our busy lives. Listen again.
Antony Gormley
I think it is a sort of infection of the centre of town in order to get people to look at probably
bits of London that they don’t bother to look at. I mean we’re all so busy, aren’t we. We’re all
going somewhere; we’ve all got an idea about a destination.
Callum: Gormley’s Event Horizon makes us look up but Gormley himself got a
different perspective as he oversaw 4 the positioning of the figures. He talks
about the topography of London, the topography – which means the shape of 
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the landscape. And he talks about this as he sees it from the ITV tower, one of
the buildings which has one of his statues on.
Antony Gormley
I’ve learned a lot about the topography of London putting these in. I mean it was fantastic
from the top of the ITV tower looking down and just seeing the texture 5 of London and what
an extraordinary, in a way, mixture, of new and old, of the very very domestic and intimate
and tight with its little gardens and then these huge new buildings.
Callum: From the top of the building he was able to appreciate the mixture of styles and
architecture in central London. The old and new, homes with small gardens
next to huge new buildings. He goes on explain more about Event Horizon,
which he calls ‘the piece’ and what it means to London.
Antony Gormley
It’s an extraordinary city that seems to express in its architectural styles the same kind of
diversity that it has in its ethnic 6 mix. And I want, I guess it is, a big question that the piece is
asking, who is included and who is excluded from, in a way, this built environment. I’m
treating London as if it were, in a way a natural landscape
Callum: London is a manmade environment that is diverse architecturally as well as
ethnically 7. He says his piece asks a question, or makes us think about who is
and isn’t included in this manmade environment.
Antony Gormley
It’s an extraordinary city that seems to express in its architectural styles the same kind of
diversity that it has in its ethnic mix. And I want, I guess it is, a big question that the piece is
asking, who is included and who is excluded from, in a way, this built environment. I’m
treating London as if it were, in a way a natural landscape with these exposed bodies that
would normally be, as it were, protected by these buildings. 
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Callum: Well I’m not entirely 8 sure I understand exactly what he means, but that’s the
beauty of art, it can mean different things to different people. What I do know
is like his Angel of the North, Event Horizon made me stop and look at the
environment around me in a different way.