Sculpture in Gloucestershire

There are currently two opportunities to see some modern British sculpture in Gloucestershire (SW England) – at Quenington and at Chalford, 18 miles (30km) to the west.

The Quenington Sculpture Trust has been running shows of contemporary sculpture in the riverside gardens of Quenington Old Rectory since 1992. The 10th show, Fresh Air 2011, which started on 19 June, features about 170 items from over 100 contributors, all in the delightful setting of Mr and Mrs Abel-Smith’s garden. Thanks to their support, what started as a local event has now become a significant biennale of sculpture with coverage in the national media.

Soaring Figure by Rick Kirby

Fragment by Jilly Sutton



Gallery Pangolin at Chalford is the showcase for the sculpture foundry, Pangolin Editions. The foundry had a long relationship with the sculptor Lynn Chadwick (1914-2003) and to mark the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain, when Chadwick’s talent was first recognised, the Gallery is showing Strange Beasts Lynn Chadwick and the New Generation.

Beast VII by Lynn Chadwick

Lorraine Robbins, the curator, asked five young artists to produce responses to Chadwick’s work and these are displayed alongside the relevant piece. Robbins gamely made her own contribution intended as a reaction to Chadwick’s Beast VII, commenting:

What strikes me about Chadwick's work and this piece in particular, is a real maleness in its welded angular construction, emphasising hard geometric shapes. In her book, The Nude in Art, Lynda Nead suggests that ‘if the male signifies culture, order, geometry ... then the female stands for nature and physicality.' She also posits that within the ideal, muscular, male body there lies a fear that it may revert to ‘its own female formlessness' or 'the beast within'. Beast 43 started as a desire to physically become Chadwick's beast. I wanted to perch heavily and precariously on a plinth, an unsavoury intruder in the gallery. In making the cast I chose to wear a bra and G-string, (a garment described by Roland Barthes in his essay 'Striptease' as the ‘ultimate triangle'), the flimsy, ornate triangles of underwear forming a distorted echo to the simple, masculine forms of Chadwick's Beast VII.

Beast 43 by Lorraine Robbins

We are left to draw our own conclusions as to the significance of Robbins' head being concealed by an empty box of dog biscuits, in contrast to the ravaging mandibles of Chadwick’s creation. Beast 43 was still on sale when I visited – I hope it finds a buyer at £2000 before the show ends on 15 July.

Fresh Air 2011 closes on 10 July.

Tate Britain: 'Susan Hiller' and 'Watercolour'

Tate Britain is hosting a “major survey exhibition” of “one of the most influential and innovative artists of her generation”, Susan Hiller. These are bold claims which I am in no position to dispute. Being a boring old techie (but younger than Hiller), I’m uneasy with “knowledge derived from anthropology, psychoanalysis and other scientific disciplines” (other!), particularly if her work “confers status on what lies beyond rationality or recognition”. The language of contemporary art criticism being way above my head, all I can do is experience her installations, constructions, vitrines etc and work out my reactions to them.

Magic Lantern

I’m afraid I couldn’t get to grips with some of her work, though I readily concede that (the apparently highly regarded) Belshazzar’s Feast: the Writing on Your Wall, inspired by apparitions on television screens after broadcasting closedown, and Psi Girls, clips of telekinetic powers and the like being exercised, are beyond the rational. Some works, though, are intriguing and thought-provoking, which is enough to make any exhibition worthwhile. Venn diagrams will never look the same again after seeing Magic Lantern. Witness is, I think, inspired – even if the voices coming from the 400 suspended speakers are describing encounters with UFOs. What was Hiller’s best work for me is just outside the exhibition area (and so can be seen for free). The J. Street Project is a collation of the filming of every street sign in Germany now incorporating the word Jude, and it is a deep and troubling evocation of the banality of evil.

On the way to the Susan Hiller show, the visitor walks through the Duveen Galleries and encounters Single Form: The Body in Sculpture from Rodin to Hepworth. This complements (and helps compensate for) the modern British sculpture currently being offered by the RA (blog post last month).

Downstairs Watercolour was much busier than the Hiller exhibition, full of Ladies Who Gouache. Its intentions are “to expand our horizons” (landscape pun?) and “to challenge conventional understandings” of the medium. I learnt much and always welcome the opportunity to see works by Ravilious and Nash. No Hockneys, but in recent years his watercolours have been generously exhibited.

Alison Smith, the lead Curator of Watercolour, asks:

... Also, what we would like to explore in this exhibition, is the question – is watercolour a particularly British phenomenon?

Klaus Kertes in the Spring edition of Tate etc suggests:

Perhaps being surrounded on all sides by water intensified the British propensity for the medium.

I certainly don’t know enough art history to begin to comment seriously, and I expect that other dull souls have suggested before that it might be our climate. As the CIA World Factbook puts it: “more than one-half of the days are overcast”. Perhaps also the humidity makes application easier, and the translucence of the medium is particularly appropriate to the light levels most of the year in the British Isles.

Watercolour by virtue of its breadth and historical depth is a highly educational endeavour, and Tate Britain should be congratulated on it. Particularly so when we learn of the BBC Trust and management’s depressing intention for Radio 4 of:

Continuing to develop the general tone of the station away from formality and perceived didacticism towards spontaneity and conversation. (Service Review, paragraph 115)

Tate seem to have realised that what many people want is to engage with substance, as attendance at any Literary Festival makes clear. Thankfully, with Miro and the Vorticists to come, it looks as though Tate is going to carry on being didactic.

Modern British Sculpture at the RA

Having enjoyed last year’s Wild Thing: Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, Gill at the Royal Academy, and being an admirer of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth and other 20C British sculptors, I had

Henry Moore's Sheep Piece at Perry Green

high hopes of this exhibition. It got off to a good start but then rapidly went downhill - Andrew-Graham Dixon and Brian Sewell say it all. There are some things worth seeing, but £11 is a lot to ask. There could have been so much more, and far better.  I'm too unsophisticated to appreciate the irony or whatever of a few 'Page 3s' from The Sun pinned to a wall – passé in a back street garage these days. So enjoy this instead from last year’s on form exhibition:


Anthony Turner Seven sweet peas

Connemara marble

50 x 100 x 20 cm