Sculpture has been practised by every culture throughout the world and stretches back into our distant past. The first surviving sha ped stones may even predate the advent of language. Evidently, the desire to carve, mould, bend, chip away, weld, suspend, balance - to transform a vast array of materials and light into new shapes and forms - runs deep in our psyche and is a fundamental part of o ur human journey and need for expression.With more than 300 spectacular illustrations, Shaping the World juxtaposes a rich variety o f works - from the famous Lowenmensch or Lion Man, c. 35,000 BCE to Michelangelo's luminous Pieta in Rome, the Terracotta Warriors i n China to Rodin's The Kiss, Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades, Olafur Eliasson's extraordinary Weather Project and Kara Walker's Fons Am ericanus, and Tomas Saraceno's ongoing Aerocene project, as well as examples of Gormley's own work.