Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Today we were taken up to the vast, and very windy fields of Yorkshire Sculpture Park on possibly one of the muddiest, slippiest days. It was a good day out and despite being several times before and a lot of the sculptures being the same due to their vast size and suitability, we ventured further than I have before (up and around the lake) and found some interesting aspects I’d never seen before.

We used the map to discover that there were a set of stepping stones on the far side of the lake, and on the way there came across Alfredo Jaar’s ‘The Garden of Good and Evil’ 2017. At first I wasn’t sure if it was something for practicality, a way to measure or record the lakes movement through the later dam/river, but with the plaque opposite it had to be Jaar’s art. Honestly, it gave me the creeps. I personally have a slight fear of deep, dark water and this particular sunken cage made the idea of the fast moving water even worse.

Jaar, A. 2017. The Garden of Good and Evil. [Steel Cage].

Contemporary art such as this, though difficult to understand the artist’s true meaning behind the work, allows me to interact with it and stirs up some feelings towards it, as I similarly find myself doing with paintings and more traditional techniques. This collection of instantaneous feelings provided me with a basis when looking at the other works on show. I believe this basis to be a deception of impossibility against possibility.

Similar feelings arose around other sculptures;

• Jaume Plensa’s ’Wilsis’ 2016, a large head, almost flattened to create various 3D thicknesses and angles of interest.
• Giuseppe Penone’s ‘A Tree in the Wind’ 2018, a variety of trees laid out around the park, holding stone blocks of various shapes and sizes high up within the branches, alongside other tree-based pieces.
• Ai Weiwei’s ‘Circle of Animals/ Zodiac Heads’ 2010, a crescent shaped collection of animals heads on poles, representing the traditional Chinese year zodiacs.

I’ve always been a fan of Jaume Plensa’s work having first seen a large exhibition of his work previously at Yorkshire Sculpture Parl around 6 years ago (give or take), and was mesmerised by his use of the human body within and around nature to exploit destruction of the the self and the surroundings. ‘Wilsis’ 2016, was an optical illusion from afar on the opposite side of the lake, and seemed to be a normal, large scale cast of a head. However, up close (when on that side of the lake) it appeared the be a much slimmer depth, with only the ear and nose protruding from a 1m deep structure. It was different to any of his work I’d seen before but was still immediately recognisable for myself.

Giuseppe Penone’s work was a particularly interesting twist on the idea of the destruction and spiral of nature. His use of contorted bark trees and large brickwork opened an idea of constructivism and urbanisation, watching buildings crush and destroy nature. A particular favourite piece was an indoor spread of a 30ft pine tree, bare and halved, and laid down flat through the (rather tight) gallery space.

Penone, G. 2018. A Tree in the Wind. [Tree and Stone].

Before this trip I’d never heard of Ai Weiwei but have learnt several interesting things about him within such a short period of time. I learn of his political trouble in China; his factories and studios were confiscated from him and he was forbidden to created, but due to the backlash and outrage this created, the government gave everything back to him to prevent further issues. He also demands that any photos of documentional work that galleries are issued (or gifted) as an exhibition copy must be burned after use; the curators have to send documentation of the burning to him as proof, in order to not violate his copyright procedures. I found ‘Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads’ interesting at first sight anyway, but now find him even more interesting.