Yorkshire Sculpture Park - Part Two

Continuing with details of our visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture park from my last post about Mister Finch. It has taken me a while to get around to writing this second part as the heat is getting to me, I can't seem to find a cool spot and my brain seems unable to grasp the simplest things.  It has taken me three days in the cooler hours of the early morning to finish it so here goes......

After a quick lunch we set off to see the other exhibitions.  We've visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park a couple of times before and had seen most of the permanent sculptures which are dotted around the parkland so we concentrated on the temporary exhibitions.

In the Georgian chapel was what I thought was a wonderful exhibition -

Beyond Time by Chiharu Shiota.  The installation was made expecially for this space.

It is made from two thousand balls of woollen thread and seems to weave its way quite magically across the extent of the chapel floor and up into the ceiling.

Most of the threads come from the bare piano structure which is set slightly off centre.  I hope the visitor doesn't mind being in my photo which I took from up in the balcony.   I thought she added scale and her face is hidden by the pretty sun hat and she is completely absorbed by what she can see.

Shiota was inspired to use the piano as part of the structure as there wasn't a musical instrument of any kind in the chapel.  She also took her inspiration from a childhood memory of seeing the skeletal remains a neighbour's piano after a house fire.

The sheets of music trapped and woven into the woollen threads represent the scores of all the music that is recorded as having been played or sung in the chapel over the years and also an historic bell ringing score.

We left the chapel and wandered over the parched grass to find the next exhibition.

The Coffin Jump by Katrina Palmer is one of the WWI centenary art commissions by 14-18 Now.

It was inspired by the history of an extraordinary group of women who became the first all female First Aid Nursing Yeomanry which was founded in 1907.   The exhibit is sometimes accompanied by both sound and performance which is activated by a horse and rider jumping over but when we saw it it was quite still in its peaceful surroundings.

The nurses would rescue men straight from the battlefield thus making a direct link between the front line with the field hospitals.  In spite of the nurses' undoubted courage the British army would not support them as they didn't like to be associated with what they saw as  'liberated' women.  The nurses concentrated their efforts and skills in helping the French and Belgian armies by running hospitals and driving ambulances.

The words on the jump are taken from the diaries and other sources of members including nurse Muriel Thompson.  Phrases like 'Woman saves Man' 'Cut to Pieces' and 'Nothing Much Happened' highlight the heroism of these women.

We returned to the main galleries and had a quick look around the exhibition 'A Tree in the Wood' by Giuseppe Penone.  Central to the exhibition is Matrice a 30 metres long fir tree which has been cut in half and dissected along one of its growth rings.  I would have liked more time to explore the outside parts of this exhibition but we had to leave and get on our way home.

 I've put links to all three exhibits in each part if you want to follow up and find out more.