MATTHEW DARBYSHIRE’s Untitled: Furniture Island No. 4 (2009) stands before JESSE DARLING’s curiously sinister March of the Valedictorians (2016) in the Longside Gallery. All photos by Ned Carter Miles for ArtAsiaPacific.

Aug 08 2017

A Walk in the Park: “Occasional Geometries” at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

by Ned Carter Miles

The year 2017 has been good for London-based Rana Begum. Having already won the prestigious Abraaj Group Art Prize, and mounted her first museum show at Norwich’s Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, she was invited this summer to curate an exhibition at West Yorkshire’s Longside Gallery, which is used on an alternating basis by Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Arts Council Collection (ACC). “Occasional Geometries,” which consists largely of works from ACC, is recognizably of Begum’s devising. Combinations of strong color and sharp geometry sit strikingly in the light, open space of the gallery, one glass wall of which looks out over fields towards the 500-acre sculpture park and its works by both British and international artists.

Converted from an old deer shelter, and comprising a minimal space from which only the sky is visible through a square hole in the ceiling, JAMES TURRELL’s Deer Shelter Skyspace (2007) makes the rolling Yorkshire hills feel a world away.

One of 12 bronze sculptures from AI WEIWEI’s Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (2010).

From zodiacal sheep to the real thing: YSP locals are free to mingle among open air works such as HENRY MOORE’s Large Two Forms (1966–69)

DAVID NASH’s Seventy-one Steps (2010) takes visitors up into the woods leading to the Longside Gallery.

Easily missed, in the woodlands at the edge of the sculpture park, HEMALI BHUTA’s site specific work Speed Breakers (2012) immortalizes the roots of a fallen beech tree in cast bronze, inviting visitors to slow down and notice the tranquil surroundings.

Ominous light from a sporadic burst of sunshine illuminates the 80 totemic figures of ZAK OVÉ’s Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Mask of Blackness (2016–17).

A visitor to the exhibition plays with RASHEED ARAEEN’s interactive Zero to Infinity (2017) in front of the West Yorkshire landscape.

A detail from BARRY MARTIN’s beautifully geometric if purposeless Series Revelation — ‘Tret’ (1965–66).

MONA HATOUM’s + and – (1994–2004) embodies an endless cycle of creation and erasure against a distinctively colored background recalling Begum’s own work.

NORMAN DILWORTH’s Single Line (1976) sits prominently by the entrance to the Longside Gallery.

AI WEIWEI’s Iron Tree (2013) stands in the sun outside YSP’s 18th-century chapel.

No. 11/68 (1968) by JEREMY MOON is visible on the wall behind figures from MATTHEW DARBYSHIRE’s Untitled: Furniture Island No. 4 (2009).

Recalling RANA BEGUM’s own works, a combination of colour and form protrude from the wall to form something greater in FLORE NOVÉ-JOSSERAND’s Better Days (2017).

“Occasional Geometries” is on view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park until October 29, 2017.

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