WAKEFIELD.- YSP announced the acquisition of Ro Robertson’s Stone (Butch) (2021) into its permanent collection. The sculpture reclaims a space in the landscape for queer and butch identities, which have historically been deemed ‘against nature’. Stone (Butch) prompts us to question who is depicted and commemorated in art. Made by plaster casting from rock formations at Godrevy Point, St Ives Bay, Cornwall. Robertson explores natural rock formations as queer forms and changing bodies. Installed near The Family of Man (1970) by Barbara Hepworth, Stone (Butch) reflects the landscape and artistic heritage of YSP.

Robertson first worked with YSP when they were selected to be an Associate Artist
during the Yorkshire Sculpture International festival in 2019. During this time, they began to consider the creation of public sculpture, an area of the arts which has traditionally represented a narrow demographic and a binary understanding of gender. Stone (Butch) is an expanded representation of the figure, situated between the body and the landscape which prompts us to question who is depicted in art and reclaims a space in the landscape for queer identities. The phrase ‘stone butch’ is taken from the lesbian and transgender activist Leslie Feinberg’s novel Stone Butch Blues (1993).

The book describes the oppression of lesbian, transgender, butch and femme identities.

“The journey of making Stone (Butch), my first public sculpture, is one of freedom and an investigation of my body and its connection to the natural landscape on my own terms and by extension a reclamation of space from a history of queerness being deemed ‘against nature’. Giving form to a negative space within the crack of a rock connects metaphorically with the gaps in our LGBTQIA+ experience and history which has disrupted how we connect with ourselves and others. To experience this work in the open air at Yorkshire Sculpture Park as part of the permanent collection I hope will bring connection by giving physicality to this void which takes its place within the history and figures of British sculpture.” – Robertson




Presented by Magnus Rausing, courtesy Maximillian William, London. Produced in collaboration with Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre.

Muamba Grove #3 and Muamba Grove #4 (2019) by Brazilian artist Vanessa da Silva are now on display in Lower Park for the first time at YSP. Focusing on identity, displacement and otherness, da Silva’s sculpture and performance practice is rooted in her experiences as a Latin American immigrant in Europe. Movement and the body lie at the centre of the Muamba Grove series and the sculptures are strongly linked with choreography, place and transformation. The series continues da Silva’s investigations of colour, scale and interactions between the human body and nature. The artist identifies each of the sculptures as ‘unrooted bodies’, genderless, neither human nor part of nature. Her works are hybrids that are in a constant state of flux, metamorphosing into something still unknown.

We welcome the return of Antony Gormley’s well-loved sculpture One and Other (2000) which will be on display on the walking route around Upper Lake. Gormley describes his work as an inquiry into the body ‘as a place of memory and transformation’, and like many of his works, One and Other is based on a cast of his own body. In its new location nestled in the local wildlife site, One and Other invites an awareness of the sculpture’s surroundings, as well as a contemplation of humanity’s place in the universe.

Peter Randall-Page’s Mind Walk (2022) installed near to the Boathouse on Lower Lake, is the latest in a series of works exploring the application of a single continuous line across the entire surface of a form. The form in this case is a granite boulder from Bavaria shaped by erosion over millennia.

As the artist says: “Of course, there are an infinite number of ways that a line can traverse a form. My intention was to respond improvisationally to the given shape of the naturally eroded boulder, whilst ensuring that the meandering line was continuous and covered the entire surface of the stone.”

Leiko Ikemura’s Usagi Kannon II (2013/2018) and Hazmat Love (2016) by Tom Friedman have been relocated from the Formal Garden to their new setting in Lower Park, and Kalliopi Lemos’ Bag of Aspirations (2019) is now dramatically sited on the steps of the 18th-century Camellia House.