The Hepworth, Wakefield. Well here we are at last. We had never been before. What to write!? It is really hard as I was expecting to be at least excited by the building or art but I was not. Not at all. Not even slightly inspired. scary isn't it?
I have had time to think about it all now and I am wondering why I did not think so much of it after all the anticipation It opened in 2011 and I have wanted to go since day one. We had a big white rusty van and no where to park it. I looked at other ways of getting there and came to the conclusion that it was a very lot of expensive hassle. Rusty van is no more and we now have a bashed car which I thought would be the answer, so off we set to go to the Hepworth in Wakefield. This is Yorkshire. This is July summertime so of course there is torrential rain. This day I even abandoned my flip flops . really it was that damn bad.
.
years and years ago I went to art college. More years that I can contemplate actually and a completely other life time.... I have a degree in fashion and Textiles....A fact forgotten in the mists of time illness divorce and debtstress. The art college was in Bath Academy of Art when it was still at Corsham Court. In those days when it was still a big deal to get a place there. The interview consisted of a panel of working artists and a short essay written on the day and a discussion on what I now know was their own work hanging in the interview room. looking back I can clearly see why I was given a place as the competition was very keen. The reason? I am slightly strange and do not like people. Even at that young age. At the time I was told I had great potential and they felt that Bath could help bring that out. In my interview I told them that I found the art on their walls souless ,unimaginative and uninspiring .The artists were my interviewers. So basically I told them they were crap artists. I then stayed in Bath for twenty years and always got an invitation, to all the new exhibitions gallery openings I fell in love with Bath .Bath arts fair as part of the Bath arts festival. This I found inspiring and lively...street art entertainers buskers theatre actors wandering the streets and of course the musicians that had studios in Box and the Royal crescent. My then husband was a musician/artist/writer. Bath was a hot bed of fashion art and music where I practically lived in the Theatre Royal bar...and even worked there at one time. I am born and educated in Yorkshire. I did not like the people. Rude aggressive and vicious. hard and unfeeling. I left as soon as school broke up in the sixth form with no plans to return.
So I was expecting all the pretentious money intellectualising over dabs and dribbles of paint and the excess jangle money spent in the shop and cafe....loudly self important over priced bits of carrot cake squirts of nibbles and mocha of some fangled kind....... .What I was not expecting was to nearly sacrifice my life and peace of mind over a parking space. Parking is as rare as finding a pile of gold dust. We were very nearly tongue lashed hung drawn and quartered then driven over. At least I was.... then left shaking by the sheer nastiness . Huge place .....hard to get to...and a titchy little car park with height restrictions. Once actually finding a space surviving the malice from other vehicle owners. Five pounds to park. Regardless of time spent. I already had my ticket! I then spent the rest of my visit looking over my shoulder hoping the woman was not behind me.I would hate to ruin her view . From her arrogance I would deduce that she always behaved in the manner So I hope her day was to her satisfaction because she clouded my whole visit. Had we not already paid for the parking space she demanded I would have got back into my dinted old car and driven away forever and never looked back.
Lee nearly disintegrated. Lee had never been to art college or lived in Bath. Lee is a normal bloke trained mechanic and has no time what so ever for selfish pretentious money filled dummys in designer linen with no manners. All those years driving a delivery van...we had never come across anything even close to the bad mannered arrogance of that car owner.
On arrival finally..... first Barbara Hepworth .the gallery cost thirty five million to build! The Barbara Hepworth bit I loved. ....
It is massive and purpose built as an exhibition space which houses plaster and aluminium working models donated by Dame Barbara Hepworths family as well as contemporary art exhibitions.....other artists work on display includes Henry More Ben Nicholson Graham Sutherland Paul Nash Jacob Epstein Walter Sickert Anthony Caro LS lowey. David Hockney
Barbara Hepworth s art is shown along side of her contemporary's.....Henry Moore who grew up in Wakefield....includes one of his reclining figures. Another room explores Hepworth in relation to
Naum Gabo and Mondrian......
magnificent space......telling a compelling story.
Henry Moore who was born in Castlford which is just close by......
modernism. this is what we are looking at here. a philosophical movement.
and i now quote.....as there is no way I can come up with all this....." A philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and far reaching transformations in western society during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Among the factors that shaped modernism were the developement of modern-industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World war 1. Modernism also rejected the certainty of enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious beliefs."
Modernism.....a form of art which includes activity and creations from those who felt traditional art architecture literature religion philosophy and social organisation were not for them.A modern fully industrialised world was for them....
"Make it new" Ezra Pound. and the " Wasteland" T S Elliott. ....the stream of consciousness.....Proust...James Joyce and all that.....of course Virginia Woolf and Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.....of course she committed suicide didn't she? And then his next wife did a copy cat suicide too!??
Dame Barbara Hepworth.....DBE. (1903-1975). her work exemplifies modernism. particularly sculpture and one of the few women of her generation to be internationally famous for her art. along with Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo she was one in a colony of artists in St Ives Cornwall during the second world war. She died in St Ives Cornwall aged 72.
Hepworth , Nicholson and their children first visited cornwall in 1939 and moved just at the outbreak of war. They lived at Trenwyn studios St Ives which became a refuge for artists during the war.
She died in a fire at the studios in 1975.
More that I did like ....in fact I really love this.
From a Hungarian artist who became a refugee and settled in Wakefield. He became a lecturer at Wakefield college of art. the exhibition is mostly self portraits from which I get isolation and alienation from his surroundings and possibly the people from this area? any way this is my fave of the day. In fact I will go one better and buy a print of this if one is available.
some others I liked.....
and then the Howard Hodgkin paintings of India.....
"Howard Hodgkin (1932-2017) is widely regarded as one of the worlds greatest painters and has occupied a central place in contemporary art for over half a century" I quote from the Hepworth blurb.
This guy died in 2017 and he went to Bath Academy of Art from 1950-1954.
Now we come on to the puzzling drab and uninspiring stuff. I tried explaining that we were looking at the end product of someones work and not the thoughts and workings that would have gone into these that follow
however this did not help much.
It is now the following morning from our visit to the Hepworth in Wakefield and I am sitting here reviewing these photos as the sun comes up over the tarn and Monza sits hopefully on his rug waiting to be taken to the woods for a walk in the sun...which is out today by the way. I look and I still can not get anything at all from these..... by the time we got to this stage of the gallery we were seriously worried for Monza, we had left him in a car park not far from the space we were rejected from by the witch queen from hell. If she was that awful to humans how would she treat a dog!?
I will say that this is the one I find the most perplexing. Lee had completely lost the plot by now and wanted to go back to our old battered car and talk to Monza the dog , give him a biscuit and go home. Another encounter with intellectual arrogance would have been the last straw!
There are lots and lots of fabulous points here and the great big picture windows that punctuate the exhibitions are a real high point. I loved and adored this part......as i made the outside surrounding environment into part of the art and gallery. the architect is a genius.
and so this just made these pictures look even more dull...dull. dull. Just my opinion of course. others possibly spend thousands on these as decoration to their architect designer homes...up to them. this is my blog so my opinion.
though the picture windows just make the place.....
made all the nastiness with the parking fiasco worth the fiver and the overbearing attack woman dissolve into the rain and wash away in the weir..
this is the last of these.....
so now on to more that I did like..........
The magnificent approach to the building across water and Wakefield character. A wonderful unexpected walk
I had been planning this trip for some time and was hoping for a great day out full of inspiration and light into my boring little life.
Loved the gallery and the light and space...discovering again Barbara Hepworth and her contemporary s...as well...if you go around in the correct order it does tell a compelling story of her art
and I expect if approached with a light heart and the sun glistening on the water....
Expecting a great day out and lunch sitting out on the river banks then yes it is a fabulous attraction and the building is worthy of a visit in its own right,
a quiet and peaceful few hours.....We did reencounter the witch queen parking woman in the shop. Spent £65.00 she did on postcards and mugs. Made the assistant go and get "new unopened" packages specially from the stock room she did.
So I leave you with Henry Moore in a vast peaceful space.
Monza is now ready for another day out....I have just read this blog to Lee and we are not going to return to The gallery in Wakefield. Depressing and souless in retrospect. Just not a happy place but then the modern world generally isn't is it!?
"we are about forty five quid into the over draft." stated Lee " we have not got any cash to go charity shops with anyway"
"Shall we stay here and go out to lunch!?" I asked. Sally Taylor BA (hons)!!!!!
"With what?" stated Lee.
So we stayed home and checked on the fridge for food for the day. I got a five pound supermarket voucher the other day from my points card so we can get Monza some pig liver for his dinner and there is frozen chicken portions in the freezer.
