Turner Prize
Founded in 1984, the Turner Prize is awarded annually to the ‘most outstanding contribution’ to British art that took place in the last year.
Biography
Born
1950
Nationality
English
Birth place
London
After taking a degree in archaeology, anthropology and art history at Cambridge University, Gormley spent three years in India studying Buddhism. On his return to London, he went to art school. Gormley is best known for his body casts; his first body casts in lead date from 1981. Over the last twenty years his work has focused on an investigation of the body as a place of memory and transformation, using his own body as the subject. Gormley won the Turner Prize in 1994, and in 1997 created the twenty-metre high Angel of the North on Tyneside.
Glossary terms
Body Art
Art practices from the 1960s onwards in which the human body forms the substance of the work. It is often manifest in performances which are documented by film or photography.
Site-Specific Art
Site-Specific Art is a term used particularly since the 1960s for art made with a specific location in mind, whether inside or outside. The work may be made at that location or made for it. Site-Specific Art may be an intervention in a specific place, environment or landscape.