Art as acupuncture: Antony Gormley on statues Hong Kong rooftops will host

Antony Gormley is a sculptor who evangelises about the provocative power of his chosen art form. He has dotted diverse landscapes with statues that pose questions about relationships between people, time and places: from a barren, remote salt lake in Western Australia to a plot squeezed between Osaka office blocks and a grassy knoll above abandoned coal mines in northeast England, where his Angel of the North spreads its giant, steel wings.

“A project like this is a diagnostic tool. It’s like acupuncture. You poke a collective body like a city and depending on the nature of the body, you get a reaction,” he says via Skype from his London studio.

“In the Netherlands, the reaction was most ‘normal’, in so far as people were delighted in the temporary visitors,” says the prominent British artist. In Rio, the reception was less positive. He recalls seeing a sign saying “bad art” tied to one of the statues, and chewing gum hardening on others.

Hongkong Land did not comment directly, but news reports quoted unnamed sources saying that J.P. Morgan was of the view that having Gormley’s life-size statues placed on rooftops would be too much of a reminder of that particular tragedy.

One year on, organisers appear to be struggling still to find enough buildings to host the statues for six months. Only three of the buildings hosting statues have been publicly named: Hong Kong City Hall, LKF Plaza and St George’s Building. Altogether, 27 rooftops are required, as four statues are supposed to be on the ground.

It’s not that the organisers are short of 24 more venues. They don’t want to give away all the ones they have secured: Gormley says the element of surprise is part of why the project stirs curiosity among people who rarely pause to take a good look at their surroundings. But landlords’ nervousness about the project means that they are still looking to place some of the statues.

Gormley, who confirms that last-minute negotiations over venues are ongoing, takes a philosophical view of the setbacks that have delayed his doppelgangers’ arrival in Hong Kong. He says the project always involves intricate negotiations no matter where it is. In Rio, the planning took only six months but 48 hours before the launch, six government buildings withdrew. It was a nightmare trying to find replacement venues at the last minute but the show went ahead.

“This project is about how human will overcomes extreme adversity. It is very much about the place of individuals against forces that are faceless determiners of our lives, such as forces of government and corporate power,” he says.

Gormley makes a great ambassador for modern sculptures. Scholarly, yet eloquent and engaging, he made a series of radio programmes in 2009 for the BBC on his five favourite works that aimed to answer the unanswerable question: what is good art? His dark and fruity voice lulled listeners with his love letters in praise of the beauty and power of art forms, and entertained them with pronouncements such as describing Marcel Duchamp’s seminal Bicycle Wheel as effete and the work of an “intellectual dilettante”.

This month, he has continued his mission to popularise sculptures with the publication of a 240-page book called Antony Gormley on Sculpture.

He says he hopes that Event Horizon will prompt Hong Kong people to pause amid their daily rush and to take a good look at the details of what’s around them – something the city’s smartphone-obsessed population rarely does any more.

He goes on to say that art’s value lies in its ability to stimulate thoughts that were lost or thoughts that would otherwise not exist at all. “A good work of art can stimulate feelings that were unknown to us until the work was there to render them available,” he says.

The withdrawal of Hongkong Land from Event Horizon might have caused conniptions at the time but Gormley is over it.

“How we occupy Central has changed and that change is for the good. Now, the parts we occupy are not associated with a traditional, colonialist presence,” he says, referring to Hongkong Land’s 19th century roots.

His choice of words is deliberate, for he wants people to see ties between his art project and last year’s Occupy Central protests. Thanks to the eastward shift that he has mentioned, the statues will now extend to Admiralty, near the main site of last year’s sit-in.

“The weight of the installation would have less resonance two years ago. I see a connection between Event Horizon and the protest, because any form of art is an instrument of self-determination. This art is not to reinforce the status quo, but to question it. This art is about Hong Kong’s growing awareness of its own unique identity that is neither its colonial past or [derived from] its new masters in Beijing,” he says.

The decision to display the statues in the central business district may not be to everyone’s taste, since the area smacks of exclusivity and may reinforce the link between art and the market – something Hong Kong certainly doesn’t need. But Gormley says it is important to place them on “classic landmarks”, so a public housing estate wouldn’t work. “We are trying to occupy the conventional view of a place, to challenge stereotypical views and unexamined values. With Hong Kong, what values does it stand for? Is it just a trading centre? The existence of these works, which cannot be owned, is the temporary expression of another kind of value,” he says.

Event Horizon will run from November 19, 2015 until May 2016. Sign up for outreach programmes and public discussions at http://www.eventhorizon.hk/