Galleries - August 2013

for the 1990s, Wilfred Cass’s re- visioning of what a sculpture park should be doing, viz the best possible artists being commiss- ioned to produce new works, mostly but not always for sale on a constantly changing basis. In one stroke the static permanent display that had previously bed- evilled them was done away with, while Cass’s imaginative, cultured eye has enured that the works are shown to the best advantage. It still works superbly, as their latest show, in collaboration with near- by Pallant House , on the work of Eduardo Paolozzi, makes clear. Pallant House takes on the 2-D output – printmaking, textiles, cer- amics, etc on a comprehensive scale, Cass the sculpture with the monumental commissioned piece ‘Paris-London’ (2000) the focus of a selection of large and medium scale works and maquettes from their archive. Witha space just 100 x 60ft in the grounds of Summertown Public Library in Oxford, Turrill Sculpture Garden couldn’t re- present a more different take on the concept, but given its intensely urban context, its ‘story’ and human value is no less significant. Twelve years ago it was an un- used and overgrown space. Now, withmoney donated by a local family who named it in honour of two fanatical gardening aunts, Katherine Shock has designed a space filled withthe kind of plants growing in nearby NorthOxford gardens and, of course, sculpture by a very wide range of prof- essional artists, bothlocal and from further afield, all of it for sale, with, this summer, a special display dedicated to the work of Eve Shepherd. Such a nice idea, one that could easily be adopted by others. Down in Surrey, a very different concept again, The Sculpture Park , at Churt, near Farnham, where some 600 sculptures by 150 artists, all for sale, are set in 10 acres of a magnificent new arboretum. The range of price, style and artistic reputation is huge too, from ex-RA President Philip King right down to just out of art school newcomers, from the mid-hundreds to five figures and from heavily abstract to jokily figurative. In short, something for everyone. NU Among the newest – it only opened last September – is Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens in West Cornwall and, with its original, site specific installations from international figures like James Turrell, Richard Long, Kis- hio Suga and David Nash already in place, its artistic ambitions certainly seem to match the bea- uty of its geographical location on steep wooded slopes and lush sub-tropical valleys that look out across to Mounts Bay and St Michael’s Mount, where the for- mer monastic owners of this estate property once lived. By 1997 the estate had fallen into decay from which it was rescued by local GP Dr Neil Armstrong and it has been his vision and quiet determination which has turned it into the new ‘destination’ garden. The Turrell piece alone is a major architectural feat, involving the construction of an underground elliptical domed chamber from which to look upward into the ephemeral Cornish sky that it fra- mes so magically. David Nash’s Black Mound, on the other hand, a circle of charred oak menhirs huddling in a sloping wooded dell, hints unmistakably at the earlier human histories of this landscape as embodied in the stone circles and carns that litter the nearby Penwith Peninsula. With more commissions to follow, Tremen- heere is setting new standards in what a sculpture garden of the future might look like. It was, of course, the Cass Scul- pture Foundation that did just that 9. GALLERIES AUGUST 13 from left: J iri Keller ‘David Lloyd Smith’ at Mall Galleries. Eve Shepherd ‘Silent Circle’ at theTurrill Sculpture Garden. K it Glaisyer ‘Lewesdon View’ (detail) at Bridport Open Studios. Eduardo Paolozzi ‘Large Frog’ 1958 © The Trustees of the Eduardo Paolozzi Foundation, from the British Council Collection at Pallant House. David Nash ‘Black Mounds’ at Tremenheere. Danu ‘Latest Landscaping’ at The Sculpture Park

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