Antony Gormley – Time Horizon, Houghton Hall, review: a 3-D ...

On April 21, Houghton Hall in North Norfolk is reopening to the public after its winter break. Visitors will be able once again to nose around the state rooms and surrounding environs of the grand Palladian mansion, built in the 18th century for Robert Walpole and now the family home of the Marquess and Marchioness of Cholmondeley. Also included in the entry price this year: Time Horizon, a massive installation by Antony Gormley, here shown in the UK for the first time. (An exhibition of ceramics by Magdalene Odundo will also open inside the house in May.)

In the entrance hall of the house, a slab of stone has been pulled up and a rusty iron sculpture of a life-sized male figure, stark naked, halfway submerged in the ground. When I visit, the hole drilled into the floor has not yet been covered, so you can see the figure’s legs and feet resting on a tower of concrete blocks in the basement. Soon, though, they will be hidden away, with only his torso visible. The other objects in the room – neoclassical art, furniture, and so on – will also be cleared out, leaving only this solitary man.

Except he is far from alone. There are 99 others like him, in 23 subtly different poses, scattered across 300 acres of parkland at Houghton. The primary conceit of Time Horizon is that each of these sculptures is positioned at the same datum level, using the height of the submerged figure in the arcade as the point of reference – a single horizon. Norfolk may be among the flattest counties in England, but now suddenly even the tiniest undulations are made apparent. Some of the 1.89- metre-tall figures are almost entirely buried, visible only from the neck up, while others loom above you on grey concrete columns.