CMU Architecture Class of 2014

Antony Gormley- Breathing Room 2

Going into Antony Gormley’s  Breathing Room 2 at the Sean Kelly gallery we first saw the sculptural pieces that explored relationships of the figures with each other and the space itself.  Gormley’s geometric approach to the human figure leads to the formation of the breathing room in which he explores furthermore the relationship between consiousness and space. The breathing room engages viewer as an occupant of the structure, enclosed within the space just as the mind is enclosed in the body. Experiencing the space, we observed that initially it looks like a two dimensional projection. The darkness of the room creates the illusion of a projection. As you walk through the space, you realize the three dimensionality and you are encapsulated in the space bounded by the illuminating geometry of the structure.  As the lights recharge the room is illuminated and one can see the geometry of the structure in day light. As we saw the structure both in day light and in the dark room the way it was intended, we observed that the two experiences were very different from each other. The daylight version shows the structure plainly without any spatiality, whereas the dark one creates that encapsulating, spatial feeling of a structure with the blue lights implanted in the structure.

Yasemin Silahtaroglu, Esra Aras