Yorkshire Sculpture Park #3 - David Nash

The most prominent exhibits currently on display at YSP (until February anyway), are the works of David Nash. For those who aren’t familiar, Nash is a sculptor most commonly associated with the “land art” movement, made famous by Andy Goldsworthy. His best known work is probably “wooden boulder”, which is featured in this blog post from Pruned. Whilst I generally find the work of Andy Goldsworthy to be interesting in print (and he does a fine postcard), I’ve often found them to be rather insubstantial in person, if not rather disappointing. By contrast, Nash’s works are much more interesting viewed at first hand. They have a robust presence that is more obviously manmade, but also evocative of the natural elements that they are derived from.

As many of the exhibits requested that photographs weren’t taken, I’ve not posted many pictures. However, if you’d like to see more, the blog below has a more comprehensive range of photo’s:

http://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/david-nash-at-ysp/

Or better still, take a visit yourself!

Yorkshire Sculpture Park #1

I’ve been a little worried that my blog is rather dominated by me complaining about stuff I don’t like. So it’s nice to be able to write a blog post about something I thoroughly approve of. When I heard news of Yorkshire Sculpture Park being expanded, I thought it was worthy of a blog post (or 4):

http://www.ysp.co.uk/ysp-media/press-releases/yorkshire-sculpture-park-launches-ambitious-new-landscape-restoration-project

Yorkshire Sculpture Park (or YSP as it tends to style itself) is a contemporary sculpture park, set in over 500 acres of former parkland, close to Wakefield. It contains a mixture of permanent installations and seasonal exhibits, which are a ‘who’s who’s’ of modern sculpture. It’s a fascinating place that even seems to appeal to those who claim not to understand art! It’s so big and there’s so much of everything to see, that every visit seems to lead to explorations of new and undiscovered places. Bretton Hall, which sits in the middle of the park, is a crumbling pile that was once used as a teaching college, and is now being converted into a hotel. In addition to the art works, the grounds are littered with features and follies, once associated with the Hall. The grounds also contain a number of abandoned 70’s education buildings, which themselves make for interesting, but slightly surreal experiences as you make your way through the park.

The recent visitor centre and galleries, are all rather lovely and I can thoroughly recommend the restaurant. Best of all, it’s entirely free to get in, and there’s only a small charge for parking.

From a purely selfish perspective, I’d honestly prefer it people didn’t want to go there. I’ve been many times over the years, and even on an August Bank Holliday, the park has been blissfully quiet. However, it’s such a terrific place that I can only wish it every success.

Rather than overload my blog with hundreds of my pictures, I’ve decided to split my slightly random pictures over 4 posts. This one focussing on the visitor centre and Henry Moores, with a little bit of Andy Goldsworthy thrown in for good measure.

Antony Gormley: 6 Times

In the far mists of time when I was studying for my art GSCE, a friend and classmate called Jude, made an amazing discovery. Following a suggestion from his Sister, Jude stuck cut-out newspaper headlines (stuff about war and pollution and Africa), around his slightly dodgy, 2B pencil and poster-paint representations of cow bones . What he hadn’t expected was the rapturous response he received from our Art Teacher, Mrs. Warwick, who thought this was the greatest artistical innovation, since middle-class Westerners discovered batik.

Following this success, Jude prepared an artist study, with of a painting of a desert and some droopy clocks(inspired by Salvador Dali), surrounded by newspaper headlines about scandal. He then went on to produce his major project, which featured a gouache seabed, with pencilled fish bones and aquatic skeletons, surrounded by headlines about, oh, oil being bad or something. For his piece de resistance, Jude’s final art exam... actually I can’t remember, but I’m dam sure it had bones and newspaper headlines.

I give this story, because it seems to me that Antony Gormley has followed a similar career path in the grown-up world of art, as my mate Jude did at Judgemeadow Community College. Only instead of bones and newspaper headlines, Gormley has figures. Also like Jude, Gormley seems to enjoy most success, when he sticks most closely to this formula (i.e. figures on Crosby Sands = good, random plinth in Trafalgar Square=bad).

While it may appear that I’m being snide about Antony Gormley’s work, it is with some affection. For me he’s like the Abba of the sculpture world; you know it’s cheesy, but you can’t help liking the Angel of the North (or SOS).

Hence I thought I’d share some recent Guardian photographs of ‘6 times’, Gormley’s new installation of 6 figures leading from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to Edinburgh’s Leith Docks.