Skip to main content

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

splendid day out at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park with a good friend from Leeds.  We used the day of summer well, and really enjoyed being in the wonderful park.   Living oop north now means I haven't been to the Sculpture Park for ages and it was really nice to go and revisit some old favorite pieces and see some new stuff,


I particular liked Ai Weiwei's Circle of animals/ Zodiac Heads - slightly amused expressions but also a little bit sinister - maybe just because it heads on sticks - but a fab installation in a perfect location and interestingly the other piece I really liked was his Iron Tree which was perfectly placed in juxtaposition with the Chapel, lovely rusting modern art with traditional architectural back drop.



We wandered the park, all the old favorites were still there, the Gormley's, Hepworths and the Goldsworthys all weathering well and looking stunning in their placement against a beautiful sunny Yorkshire back drop. Complimented by new interesting additions - check out Zak Ove's new work in the lower garden - and as always the gallery's housed a visiting thought provoking collection by and German artist, Tony Cragg.

'Spring' by Tony Cragg

'Secretions' by Tony Cragg

detail of 'Secretions' by Tony Cragg - how fab is this?

These were amazing large sculptural objects made from a large range of materials and fashioned into beautiful organic shapes and columns.  the wooden ones were incredible, being made from layered plywood put together and then worked to produce huge beautiful finished piece which looks like its made form one piece of wood.  They are extremely tactile-  inviting to touch - NOT ALLOWED - but non the less tempting.

The Sculpture Park is a very glorious place to be on our rare summer days its setting is so tranquil and the expanse and vista mean it never looks busy even though the car park was full and there were school trips enjoying picnics and imitating the colorful Gaudi inspired Niki de Saint Phalle's 'Buddha' statue.  what a lovely place to enjoy the sun!!!

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful.   There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

 Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors!   The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay.  The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank.  Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...