Designed over 200 years ago as a private pleasure ground, much thought and attention has been given to the planting of exotic trees, modelling of the hills and valleys and the use of water and architectural features in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP). The park was split up in the 1940’s but was brought back together 30 years ago by the YSP along with a integrated landscape management plan.
Now the 500 acres of rolling rural north accommodate a wide range of exhibitions, instillations and commissions. The spirit of the historic landscape’s design is preserved through a team of working farmers, foresters and artists.
The new Underground Gallery, designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley is sensitively sited within the landscape. It is set into the hillside of the historic Bothy Gardens and is designed to have minimum impact on the surrounding landscape. A glazed concourse links the four galleries and allows them to be naturally lit throughout the day.
The fields, lakes and open countryside complement the sculptures beautifully, evoking different sensory experiences throughout the changing seasons.
Andy Goldsworthy
Currently the YSP is home to a specially commissioned series of outdoor works and interventions by Andy Goldsworthy. The principal themes are: holes; walking and journeying; consideration of nature and time; historical agricultural structuring and layering of the landscape; performance and the body.
Upon entering the Underground Gallery I was instantly confronted with a large, interwoven egg-shaped form of interlocking oak branches. At first this intervention felt intimidating as I shuffled around the work, with my back pressed to the wall, along with the other visitors. It seemed amazing that the whole structure could be self-supporting.
Moving through the gallery I found myself inside what felt like a giant upside down nest. The smell of wood was intense and the intervention gave a feeling of security and calm.
One of my favourite pieces was an intricate floor to ceiling web of sycamore stems held together by black thorns. The piece seemed to have a lyrical beauty to it, indicative of the delicacy and fragile complexity of nature.
Outside Goldsworthy had placed a series of stone enclosures, containing the twisted skeletons of fallen trees. I watched as visitors eagerly approaches these ‘tombs’ and reacted with excitement and awe as they peered inside.
I was less impressed with the impenetrable, circular sculpture, ‘Enclosure’, intended to evoke memories of the Enclosure Act which prevented so many people from wandering through the countryside freely. After satisfying a mild curiosity to see what was inside the wall, by climbing onto my brother’s shoulders, I was disappointed to find nothing and felt let down by Goldsworthy for not rewarding my curiosity, as he had with the stone ‘tombs’ mentioned earlier.
More disappointing still were Goldsworthy’s attempts at profundity in sheep shit and blood of road-kill. Unlike Goldsworthy’s other work at the YSP these particular pieces were not able to evoke my sense of excitement or curiosity.
Sacred Monsters was powerful and exhilarating performance and I found that it was enhanced by the design of the Sadler's Wells Theatre, by Nicholas Hare Architects. The auditorium is lined with metal gauze panels upon which images and lights can be projected to radically transform the theatre and unite audience and performers.
