Starting
from this week, 31 sculptures of naked, anatomically-correct men appear
across a kilometer stretch in the heart of the city.
Each are placed within eyesight of one
another, with four cast-iron sculptures found at street level and
twenty-seven, made of fiberglass and suspended on rooftops.
Collectively, the figures make up "Event Horizon," a work by British sculptor Sir Antony Gormley.
"The
idea is to make the built world, somehow the subject of reverie. To
think about it imaginatively. To encourage people in some way to shift
from a world of obligation and towards dreaming with our eyes open,"
explains Gormley.
The sculptures are molded after the artist himself -- embodying Gormley's slight hunch and tallish figure.
Each bear subtle variations -- most notably where the breath falls in relationship to the diaphragm.
The installation, which first exhibited in London in 2007, has toured Rotterdam, New York, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro.
But
Hong Kong is "more manic and taller" than other host cites says
Gormley, with its towering skyline rendering many of the works
"photon-sized."
One of the most
prominent figures is perched atop the 607-ft (185m) Standard Chartered
Bank Building, a skyscraper in Central, Hong Kong's financial district.
If you stop and squint, you can just about make out the slight silhouette, looming ominously down, as if about to jump.
"Many of the buildings in Hong Kong have names of the corporation," says the artist.
"They
identify the building as part of the mercantile world. I'm interested
in liberating the buildings as shapes. Shapes of landscape.
"My
idea is that this is a form of acupuncture. These tiny needles going in
and around the collective body of the city -- in order to release an
energy that wouldn't otherwise arise."
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