Despite a nearly 30-year preoccupation with the human form, the London-based sculptor Antony Gormley has hardly exhausted the subject. His often-life-size figures, composed of metal rods, cubes or spheres in different finishes, exist in a vast repertoire of poses and arrangements: crouching, upright, alone or in groups.

Movement has often been implied, but with Gormley’s new "Ataxia" series, shaped from rusted steel blocks, it is explicit. In one example the head is tilted to the side while an arm is bent in front of the body as if to ward off a punch.

"They are very exciting departures from anything he has done in the past," says Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts, of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac.

Seven "Ataxia" works (priced between $285,000 and $340,000) along with a selection of other recent pieces, such as Splice III, 2008, are being shown at Ropac’s Austrian branch from April 4 through May 23. A catalogue, with an essay by the poet and Cambridge literary scholar Rod Mengham, accompanies the show.

"Body Art" originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's April 2009 Table of Contents.