Today we visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Bretton, Wakefield. I was not entirely sure of what to expect before the trip as I have never been to a sculpture park before. I felt that this was a really beneficial exercise however as there were many different exhibitions and projects to see.
When we arrived at the park we all split up into little groups and made our own way around. I was with Drew and Rich and after looking at a map we decided to take the long route around the park as we wanted to see the Winter/Hörbelt “Basket #7.Oxley Bank” and the Longside Gallery. After walking for quite a while we eventually reached “Basket #7.Oxley Bank”. I felt really inspired by this piece and I felt that it was helpful to be able to interact and explore it which was not possible with some of the other pieces. I did like some of the pieces in the Longside gallery but I without doubt preferred the “Basket #7.Oxley Bank” (see image below).
After visiting the Longside Gallery I was thinking that there was not a very large selection of pieces to look at. I soon realised however when looking at the map I had collected that the majority of the sculptures were in fact on the other side of the park. I liked many of the pieces that we came across on the other side (see image below) but I particularly enjoyed the Leaf Stalk Room in the Underground Gallery by Andy Goldsworthy. After talking to the guide in the gallery I was amazed to find out that this consisted of more than 10,000 twigs. You could tell looking at this piece that the artist had put a huge amount of time and effort into it and I was staggered at how the whole thing stayed together.
I also enjoyed the pieces by Henry Moore in the Country Park. I think that he created some really fascinating sculptures (see image below) and I enjoyed looking around his work. I was surprised to see that he was born in Castleford which is local to me and that he states that the West Yorkshire landscape really influenced him as a young artist. His work is also on display in The Henry Moore Institute in Leeds and this is certainly somewhere I would consider visiting in the future.
Overall I am really glad that we made the trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I felt that there was quite a lot of inspiring pieces on display and I would definitely recommend it to everybody.
5 comments:
There really was all sorts about to get your teeth stuck into. A lot of the time we found ourselves asking when we saw trees that had fallen down 'is that meant to be like that? Is that art?' so the day fulfilled it's purpose as far as I'm concerned.
It made me more receptive to the idea of art in general, and I'm glad of the experience.
Not sure about, ahem, Goldsworthy's 'smearing' exhibition.
We probably should have had a look at the map first, but we did stumble across some interesting pieces walking the long way around. I liked the iron girder that had been bent around, I didn�t get this at first but after you or Drew mentioned it, it has really grown on me.
I think it will be quite hard getting all the inspiration form the sculptures down onto a flat piece of paper, I think this is a challenge by itself.
We really should have used the map as well. We ended up just going straight to the goldsworthy Museum after looking around the inside areas.
I thought that we had covered most of the art pieces by the time we finished but looking through some of the photo's that have been posted I realised that I'd missed many pieces.
Thanks for your comments. I wasn't really sure about Goldsworthy's exhibition either but I did like some of the pieces in the room at the back with the big pineapple in.
We should really have used a map to see where we were going but I felt that it was quite exciting not knowing what to expect next!
I enjoyed the #7.Oxley Bank too, it was good that you could actually get inside the piece and take in the view, even though it was very restricted.
Maybe this was part of the artist's vision that he could restrict the viewer somewhat.
Also you couldn't actually walk around the piece upstairs as the walls tapered in.
The experience was also intensified by the weather. It did remind me of a glamorous tree house.
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