The Antony Gormley Project

Project Factory is sad to say goodbye

The West Front of Wells Cathedral has said goodbye to DOUBT, Antony Gormley’s cast iron figure, which took its place alongside the other sculptures in August 2021.  It was initially only here for 18 months but the loan was very kindly extended to 2024 and DOUBT has now graced Niche 338 for three years.  In that time Wells Cathedral, The Bishop’s Palace and Wells Museum have hosted over 700 children in a range of workshops and tours which were subsidised by bursaries allocated from the donations, grants and sponsorship raised to get DOUBT here and send it back.  Dan Vidler led a primary school project that involved over 500 local children.  CHATS, the arts talks at Cedars Hall, welcomed over 2300 people to the 18 talks and offered 10% of the tickets to students free of charge.   Two promotional films were made to encourage people to come to Wells and a Heritage Brochure was produced and continues to sell.  

‘It has been an extraordinary project of collaboration. Initiated by the vision of Paddy O’ Hagan from Wells Art Contemporary, and with thanks to the generosity of Antony Gormley and Wells Cathedral to enable the installation to happen. We look forward to seeing what will happen to Niche 338 in the future’.

DOUBT TO REJOIN ARTISTS COLLECTION

Antony Gormley’s DOUBT (2020), which presently occupies an empty niche below the north-west tower of Wells Cathedral, will be returning to the artist’s collection this summer after three successful years on display, having been seen by tens of thousands visitors.

Visitors to the Cathedral will have until mid-August 2024 to view Gormley’s cast iron sculpture.

Wells Cathedral’s Canon Chancellor, The Reverend Dr Megan Daffern, says “DOUBT has been with us for longer than initially expected, so we have decided to invite space to follow it – both literally and metaphorically. Theologically and artistically, we need space to wonder and grow in our relationship with God; to invite spaciousness in ourselves, in our souls and in our community, and space to pause replacing busy thoughts and activities.

“So we are committing to a three year ‘space’ to allow good consideration of what should be in Niche 338; including about what the future of Niche #338 should include. It also allows for a simple series of space-related projects about which local partners may wish to make suggestions.”

DOUBT IS INSTALLED IN NICHE 338

On 26 August 2021, a new work by Antony Gormley entitled DOUBT (2020) was installed on the West Front of Wells Cathedral in Somerset. The work is on loan to Wells for a period of 18 months. 

Antony Gormley says: “I am very aware of the paradox of placing an object called DOUBT on the facade of a building devoted to belief, but it seems to me that doubting, interrogating, questioning, are all part of belief. For me doubt can be a positive force and the imaginative engine of future possibility.

I am interested in conversations in and about time, and in art as a continuum that brings history to now, and vice versa. I have chosen this niche on the West Front of Wells Cathedral for its exposed position and visibility: the book at the end of the bookshelf. The layered facade plays a wonderful game with its serial structuring of absence and presence, of the named and nameless. Many of the features have been erased by time and weather, exposing the stone’s material identity. The seriality of the niches, the quality and condition of the sandstone, and the gothic style of the front, are all complimentary qualities against which the geometric form, material, and industrial manufacturing methods of DOUBT are registered.

Most of the figures on the west facade stand facing the world in an open attitude of confidence, proudly displaying their attributes – regal, military, and divine. In contrast, I have used the orthogonal geometry of our modern habitat to evoke the body as a place. DOUBT is literally on edge and teeters uneasily out of its niche, one foot perilously off the ledge and one shoulder jutting forward. This cast iron body has collapsed into itself, compressing torso to pelvis; energy is drawn inwards but the head juts out enquiringly into space at large.

Whilst installing a work in Devon in 1993, I stood for a moment high on the trunk of a 10-metre dead oak tree in order to understand the feeling of a living Nelson on his column in Trafalgar Square. In a similar way, I see DOUBT as an attempt to invoke this feeling of being isolated and exposed on the corner of a Gothic masterpiece.”