Yorkshire Sculpture Park

A wonderful day out: walking in beautiful countryside and art - I can't think of a better combination.

We walk down the hill and get to the Bretton Chapel - the Bretton estate dates back to 1261.

and then on to Andy Goldsworthy's  'Shadown Stone Fold'

Helen Escobedo's  'Summer Fields'. She was one of the first proponents of installation and site-specific sculpture in Mexico

Having first seen hay bales in England she became intrigued and created these 20 bales for Yorkshire Sculpture Park

She was keen that her projects enhance rather than dominate their surroundings, so transparency is of key importance. These bales are designed in such a way as to merge and float in their surroundings

They are see-through and change according to the light, becoming visible and at other times invisible.

We then come to the Gate and Dam Head Bridge and we cross it.

this is our view from the bridge

and this

we come to this building at the other end of the bridge

the path along the lake is beautiful

an unexpected surprise is David Nash's  'Seventy One Steps'  which follow the lie of the land up the hill.

The steps are made out of a single oak tree and are embedded in thirty tons of coal.

the views of the lake from here are breathtaking

we can even see Henry Moore's 'Large Two Forms' 

The Menagerie woods

the light filtering through the branches

magical.

The Menagerie footbridge constructed in 1782 to provide views along the inlet to the stepping stones and acoss the lake to Bretton Hall.

the stepping stones

Bretton Hall

The Highland cattle

How can anything so huge

be so cute?

We now cross the Cascade Bridge

 

and get our first view of  'Promenade'  by Anthony Caro

Burt first Anthony Gormley's  'One and Other', another cast of his own body, an investigation into the body as 'a place of memory and transformation'. This work was installed this summer, the top of the tree chosen to reiterate yet again Gormley's view that the solitude of the individual figure should be reinforced by its position - here, the work is a reassuring signpost and yet out of reach and aloof.

 

The next installation is Michael Zwingmann's 'Invasion'. From a distance the installation resembles black hay bales but on closer inspection one can see that these are massive (each is 1.83 m in height and weights 5 tonnes) and are made of asphalt.

 

The subtitle of this installation is 'The Noise of the Road Penetrates into the Park' - is this an invasion of the natural landscape? Is Zwingman suggesting a collision between human-made and nature? Is, what was once considered an achievement over nature, now seen as an assault?

 

a different view.

A look at the cascades behind us before we move on

'Promenade' by Anthony Caro was first created for the Tuilleries gardens in Paris and takes its name from the historical fashion of walking in public places to meet, and to be seen, by others. The shape of the sculpture suggests the rythm and movement of walking but it also allows visitors to walk around and inside it.

 

We walk up the hill to the gardens and a familiar sculpture greets us:

'Someone and Someone'  by Eva Rothchild which we last saw at Roche Court (featured in this blog on

June 10).

 

'Porta d'Oriente', Mimo Paladino

 

and a view from the back

 

'Heros de Lumiere', Ogor Mitoraj

 

Jonathan Borofsky, 'Molecule Man 1+1+1'

 

a closer look