On Monday 21 September I paid a visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Breton near Wakefield. I had noticed the signs for this park from the M1 many times but had never paid a visit. In these times of Coronovirus, it seemed an appropriate place to visit. Social distancing shouldn’t be a problem in an outdoor park. Obviously other people felt the same way and there was a little surprising number of cars in the parking lot. The park, however, is over 500 acres in size so there was more than enough space for everyone to be comfortably spaced.
There is a small internal space containing an exhibit by Joana Vasconcelos which I entered first before setting out over the vast estate. The afternoon involved a lot of walking as the exhibits are quite well spaced. By the end of the afternoon my iPhone told me I had walked 7.5 miles.
There are so many pieces in the grounds that I could never possibly remember all of them. The ones that stuck out in my memory were….
Barbara Hepworth’s - Family of Man
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| Family of Man - Barbara Hepworth |
Ai Weiwei - Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads - this piece was in the Crocker in Sacramento a couple of years ago.
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| Circle of Animals Heads - Ai Weiwei |
Ai Weiwei - Iron Tree - a beautiful huge metal sculpture of a tree situated in a small churchyard.
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| Iron Tree - Ai WeiWei |
Sophie Ryder - Sitting - a large sitting woman with a rabbits head formed out of galvanized wire.
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| Sitting - Sophie Ryder |
Andy Goldsworthy - Hanging Trees - three beautiful stone wall sunken enclosures with fallen dead trees appearing to grow out of the walls. Perhaps my favorite of all the pieces but then I also liked Andy's Outclosure - a circular dry stone wall in a small wood called Round Wood and his Shadow Stone Fold - a beautiful stone walled sheep pen with a square section in the middle with a huge rock in the middle of it. I doubt there is any finer dry stone walling anywhere.
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| Hanging Trees - Andy Goldsworthy |
Sean Henry - Seated Figure - a wonderful large statue of a man seated and looking out over the valley below. The location is perfect and the larger than life sculpture is just perfect.
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| Seated Man - Sean Henry |
Damien Hirst - The Virgin Mother - a very large figure of a pregnant woman one side normal, the other side with the skin peeled back to reveal the muscles, intestines and foetus.
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| The Virgin Mother - Damien Hirst |
Damien Hirst - Charity - a large model of a spastic child clutching a teddy bear and a donation box. On the back side a crowbar and an opened donation box with coins scattered around on the ground.
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| Charity - Damien Hirst |
Henry More - various pieces of his. Always interesting.
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| Henry More |
Joana Vasconcelos - Pop Rooster - a beautiful large colorful rooster sitting on top of a hill.
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| Pop Rooster - Joana Vasconcelos |
There are more photos here.
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