British sculptor Antony Gormley presents new works in Seoul, investigating the complex relationship between urban dwellers and their built environment.
More than half the worlds population now lives in cities, and the UN expects that figure to hit 70% by 2050. It raises an urgent question: in our increasingly crowded urban world, how do we stay true to ourselves while being constantly shaped by our surroundings? British sculptor Antony Gormley tackles this modern dilemma head-on in his new Seoul exhibition Inextricable, where he explores what happens when, as he puts it, “the world now builds us.”
Seoul makes perfect sense as the setting for this investigation. The citys dramatic rise from post-war ruins to global powerhouse is written into its skyline—towering developments and dense infrastructure that embody exactly what Gormleys getting at. Urban environments dont just surround us anymore; they actually reshape how we move, think, and feel.
At the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery in Hannam district, Gormley shows off his latest thinking about where spaces begin and end. His Extended Strapworks series creates these twisting steel ribbon sculptures that mess with your sense of inside and outside. They snake across floors and up walls, turning the gallery itself into part of the artwork and making you rethink everything you thought you knew about space.
Downstairs, his Knotworks pieces really drive the point home. These sculptures cling to every surface—floors, walls, ceilings—like the hidden guts of a city: all those pipes, cables, and transit lines that we rarely think about but that actually control how we move through urban space. Walking among them, you start to feel how completely were wired into the citys systems.
Over at White Cube in the busy Cheongdam district, Gormley takes a different approach. His Beamer series uses steel beams arranged like 3D graphs, turning human bodies into architectural blueprints. One piece is literally wedged between the gallerys glass front and interior wall—a clever jab at how art gets packaged and sold. In a city like Seoul, where commerce and culture are so intertwined, it feels especially pointed.
The two cast iron sculptures outside offer a completely different mood. These life-sized figures, made from heavy iron, seem to pull you back down to earth—literally and figuratively. In a place as built-up as Seoul, that connection to something more fundamental feels precious.
Gormleys also showing recent drawings that treat body and building as two ways of experiencing the same thing. They work alongside the sculptures to open up new ways of seeing how we relate to the spaces around us.
Inextricable runs at both Seoul venues through the fall: Thaddaeus Ropac (Hannam district) until November 8, and White Cube (Cheongdam district) until October 18, 2025.
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