Exhibitions 2
Sculpture at Goodwood (Hat Hill Copse, near Chichester, open Thurs, Fri, Sat, 1 March-30 October) New Art Centre Sculpture (Roche Court, East Winterslow, near Salisbury, open every day, all year)
If I were a
rich man . . .
John Spurhng
The recent party celebrating the first three years of Sculpture at Goodwood ended with an invitation to the nearby racecourse for the last race of the day. The prize was presented by Sir Anthony Caro, whose mighty steel construction, 'Good- wood Steps', 32-metres long, greets the vis- itor at the entrance to Hat Hill Copse.
The enterprise itself — 20 acres of wood- land, opened up with rides, paths and clearings to provide sites for 40 sculptures, three pavilions and a variety of garden seats — won the National Art Collections Fund Prize in 1996 and spent it on a sculp- ture by Bill Woodrow. 'Sitting on History' is a seat made of bronze in the form of a huge open book attached to a ball• and chain. The visitor can sit there enjoying the view southwards over Chichester and, whether thoughtfully, mockingly or loyally, depending on his temperament and politi- David Mach's 'Garden Urn, 1996, 'enabled' by the Hat Hill Sculpture Foundation cal convictions, derive extra pleasure from knowing that the piece was based on a three-volume history of the Labour party.
The maturity and versatility of contem- porary British sculpture can be judged by it being at least as likely to be humorous, ironic or enigmatic as grand, poetic or sen- sual. Indeed, the best sculptures at Good- wood, setting ideas against materials and technical virtuosity against both, express as many moods in one entity as a piece of music in several movements. David Mach's `Garden Urn', for instance, is copied from a mighty sugar-bowl urn, two-and-a-half- metres high, in the grounds of Biddulph Grange in Staffordshire, but Mach's ver- sion is made entirely of wire coat-hangers. Light invades and bounces off it; the pro- truding hooks of the coat-hangers turn its formal outline into a hedgehog fuzz; the whole thing sways elastically if you touch it. It takes solemn monumentality literally to the cleaners and yet contrives to remain monumental. William Pye's 'Vessel III' is another urn, a metre high and made of bronze, filled to the brim with water, which can be seen flowing steadily away down a broad-lipped funnel at the centre but is so still at the outer circumference that it seems almost a trompe l'oeil: some trans- parent or polished solid material such as glass or green marble masquerading as liq- uid.
Peter Burke's 'Host' consists of some 40 life-size figures appearing to advance in serried but irregular groups out of the trees into a glade, as if you had strayed into their territory• and were about to be taken to their leader, if not more savagely handled. Closer to, they look more vulnerable than threatening. Made of copper and steel, they can now be seen to be only half creat- ed, clones from a common mould with their rough edges still adhering, like discarded prototypes or files trapped and wrapped for a spider's supper.
Bryan Kneale's three-and-a-half-metre long `Deemster Fish' is made of rust-red corten steel. Its head and body hug the grass, its tail rears up against the back- ground of a great flint wall built by French prisoners during the Napoleonic wars. Part monster skeleton, part three-dimensional abstract drawing of planes, curves, twists and folds, this static, heavy material remi- niscent of an old plough rusting in a field paradoxically conjures up movement and dynamism, while its gutted, stranded posi- tion at your feet contradicts any such possi- bility.
Whether you see it at a distance through the wood or along a descending ride or standing near its base within earshot of the faint hum of its electric motors, George Cutts's 'Sea Change' is as mesmeric as the waves of a calm sea, whose visual rhythm it echoes. Two tall, slender rods of stainless steel, each curved in three places at differ- ent angles, revolve endlessly around each other without ever touching, encircled by tall, thin trees. `Sea Change' has been `enabled' under Goodwood's system of commissioning works and paying for them to be made. More than half the sculptures on display this year have been enabled in this way and, when they are sold, pay back the foundation's expenses, with the profit going to the artist. If I were a rich man I would buy an estate just to contain all of those I have mentioned and at least half a dozen more I have not.
The New Art Centre has been showing sculpture for sale at Roche Court near Sal- isbury for nine years. The works here tend to be smaller than those at Goodwood and there are twice as many, set amongst lawns, flower-beds, hedges and Woodland areas surrounding a sturdy mansion built for Lord Nelson. Barbara Hepworth is particu- larly well represented here this year, with a blue hollowed 'Monolith' on the terrace lawn, the well-known 'Construction (Cruci- fixion)' in the adjoining field and the four- piece bronze 'Conversation with Magic Stones' on the main lawn sloping up from the side of the house.
There are several heads as well as anoth- er group of half-created clones — small, silvery, herded into a box — by the sculptor of Goodwood's 'Host', Peter Burke; and to rival Goodwood's ingenious seats, an oak bench by Alison Crowther which spirals round a tree, an arbour made of living wil- low by Clare Wilks and a leprechaunish `Forest Throne' by Karen Hilliard con- structed improbably of bricks. But the tro- phy I would most like to take away from Roche Court to my Lottery estate is Mary Spencer-Watson's two-piece stone carving `The Vision', a recumbent man entranced — or perhaps just urged to get up and do something — by a standing woman.
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