A major exhibition Still Standing: A Contemporary Intervention in the Classical Collection of seventeen new works by leading British sculptor Antony Gormley  is opened in the State Hermitage, Saint-Petersburg.  

The exhibition is supported by the Hermitage Foundation UK, White Cube and the British Council.

It is the first time that a living artist has engaged with the Hermitage’s classical Greek and Roman galleries. Gormley places nine ancient statues in a loose constellation directly on the ground so that these idealised and sexualised bodies share the same conditions as the viewer.

The exhibition, which runs till 15 January 2012, is curated by Dr Dmitry Ozerkov, Head of Contemporary Art Department, and by Dr Anna Trofimova, Head of Antiquity Department, The State Hermitage Museum, in association with Antony Gormley.

The exhibition, Still Standing: A Contemporary Intervention in the Classical Collection, marks the first time that a living artist has engaged with the Hermitage’s classical galleries. The commission forms part of the Hermitage 20/21 project, an ambitious programme aimed at showcasing the best of contemporary art in the Hermitage and expanding the display of 20th century art.

Watch the photoreport from the opening of the exhibition

Antony Gormley was born in London in 1950. His work has been exhibited extensively throughout the UK, with solo shows at the Whitechapel, Tate, Hayward and the British Museum and internationally at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Denmark),

Malmö Konsthall (Sweden), Kunsthalle zu Kiel (Germany), National Museum of Modern Chinese History (Beijing), Garage Centre for Contemporary Sculpture (Russia) and Kunsthaus Bregenz (Austria).

Increasingly, the artist has taken his practice beyond the gallery, engaging the public in active participation, as in Clay and the Collective Body (Helsinki) and the acclaimed One & Other commission in London’s Trafalgar Square. Critically acclaimed permanent works include Angel of the North (Gateshead, UK), Another Place (Crosby Beach, UK), Habitat (Anchorage, United States) and Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands).

Photo: Artist Antony Gormley at his exhibition, Blind Light. Photograph: Getty