The first room is dominated by Space Station, a huge structure. It looks like a weird space city, but like almost everything in the exhibition, it was modelled on his body, then processed, in this case into perforated metal blocks. It explores the relationship between man, the space occupied by a body and the environment in which the body lives, and this lies at the heart of the exhibition and the related sculptures, which line the skyline around the Hayward for miles around.
Blind Light is the cloud within a box. The feeling as you enter the glass box is like walking into a pitch black room, where the darkness is so heavy as to be physically oppressive, visceral, material, only in negative, for here it is “pitch whiteness” that envelopes you. It is not just a mist, it is a solid. You can’t even see your feet.
self portrait inside Blind Light
In the oppressive whiteness, I became acutely aware of how much debris floats on the surface of my eyes, little spots and wisps like tiny cotton fragments. The air is saturated with moisture; you are encased in a clinging cool wetness. You don’t want to be in here for too long.
Upstairs is a room of Matrices and Expansions which I really liked. They look at first like delicate exploded fragments, filigree structures of delicate rods. As you look more closely, some of the rods are darker and, when viewed from different angles, body form emerge, often hanging upside down, suspended within the structures. They make me think of computer modelling, DNA, space age pods, string theory, and exploded consciousness.
Lining the walls are a series of Quads, collections of four photographs, which share or comment on the others in the batch. In one set, a lone Gormley statue on a beach is echoed by three farmers standing in a field, the horizon of the field echoed in a landscape devoid of people or statues. In another, a v shaped valley shares perspective with a square tunnel, and the V of a building crane.
I cue for ages to get into Hatch, a perforated box. Only two are allowed in at any time. Hollow rectangular rods of different lengths puncture the room seemingly randomly; tiny squares of light hover at the end of the rods. Viewed up close, the effect is kaleidoscopic. The catalgue talks of endoscopy
Throughout the gallery, Gormley body forms lie, hang, and squeeze themselves into corners.
Upstairs is a room of Matrices and Expansions which I really liked. They look at first like delicate exploded fragments, filigree structures of delicate rods. As you look more closely, some of the rods are darker and, when viewed from different angles, body form emerge, often hanging upside down, suspended within the structures. They make me think of computer modelling, DNA, space age pods, string theory, and exploded consciousness.
Lining the walls are a series of Quads, collections of four photographs, which share or comment on the others in the batch. In one set, a lone Gormley statue on a beach is echoed by three farmers standing in a field, the horizon of the field echoed in a landscape devoid of people or statues. In another, a v shaped valley shares perspective with a square tunnel, and the V of a building crane.
I cue for ages to get into Hatch, a perforated box. Only two are allowed in at any time. Hollow rectangular rods of different lengths puncture the room seemingly randomly; tiny squares of light hover at the end of the rods. Viewed up close, the effect is kaleidoscopic. The catalgue talks of endoscopy
Throughout the gallery, Gormley body forms lie, hang, and squeeze themselves into corners.
From the terraces, you get a great view of the Gormleys staring at you from the surrounding rooftops. 
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