Antony Gormley: Making Space

While Gormley prepares his "cloud in a box" work, a film crew follows him to understand his work and creative process. However, at the same time, a lobby group has successfully campaigned to have his sculptures removed from a beach on the grounds of health and safety.

I like modern art and indeed just last week spent a great day in MOMA in NYC (ohh, get you). But this isn't the same as me saying that I am knowledgeable on the subject or am anything other than a philistine when it comes to art. So for me personally this film manages to be everything to me in short bursts. At times it was fascinating because Gormley is passionate about his work and you can see that in how he talks about it. I could also see beauty in some of the works that I had not seen before, as well as those iconic ones that we all know (and perhaps love). However on the flip side he does also come over as incredible pretentious and full of his own self-importance – it is fair to say that this is not an unassuming man we're dealing with here. Yes he is passionate about his art, but he carries it like he is saving babies from burning buildings, dismissing those around with a palatable sense of arrogance.

This isn't constant though and when it is absent the film is very interesting – not only in listening to him but also in seeing the creative process. OK, we may not all see the cloud as art or see a value in his work but it is still interesting to see an artist create, and that is well done here. So worth a look then unless you know nothing about (or dislike) Gormley because, despite some of the issues I had with the man as he comes across here, it is still an interesting film and the type of thing I'd like to see Channel 4 do more of with all the cash they earn from Big Brother etc.