27/01/22 - Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) has been an outdoor exhibition space for Modern and Contemporary sculpture for 40 years. It is located 2 hours by train from London, exactly 11 km from Wakefield, in West Yorkshire. It occupies 500 acres on a slightly undulating territory, where hundreds of sheep graze placidly. It is precisely there that sculptures and monumental installations by artists from all over the planet are distributed. They are gifts from the artists themselves or from collectors, loans, and commissions of site-specific sculptures. Approximately 100 works are exhibited and they can be admired during a tour that takes about 5 hours.

Large totem head, by Henry Moore (1968)

Bronze

Large Spindle Piece, by Henry Moore (1968)

Bronze

Snowman, by Gary Hume (2014)

Bag of Aspirations, by Kalliopi Lemos (2018)

The Virgin Mother, by Damien Hirst (2005-6)

Painted bronze

One of the most powerful presences corresponds to The Virgin Mother by Damien Hirst, a sculpture of more than 10 meters high in painted bronze, which stands out on the Lower Lake of the property. The same happens with the pieces of Henry Moore, whose pieces work as if the land were adapted to them or these to YSP. It is an invaluable opportunity to appreciate these works: the game between full and empty, the tension and energy between the different points, the materiality, the organicity and, above all, the scale!! There are almost no restrictions in terms of approaching and touching, only climbing on the works is prohibited. And since each of the sculptures has several points of view, they always deserve a circular appreciation.

A simple and beautiful snowman in an artificial pond (not only geography accompanies, but all of nature) belongs to Gary Hume. It's a childish figure where the artist explores structure and color while inviting us to imagine something else in those two simple white shapes placed one on top of another. What to say about the appropriation of the famous and desired bag of the French firm Hermès. Lemos questions the need for the approval of the outside world by the possession of the object and the security it provides to those who own it.

Finally, in this very small selection we chose Leiko Ikemura, the Japanese artist who, with Rabbit Madonna, represents a particular rabbit, with female attire and face, in reference to the subsequent report on the defects in animals after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.

There is no place that does not produce admiration and, despite the temperature and the wind, it is worth visiting in all its dimensions.