Yorkshire Sculpture International: Everything that's happening in Wakefield during the 100 day festival

Yorkshire Sculpture International will bring some of the world's most recognisable artists to Wakefield.
This is everything that's happening in Walefield as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019.This is everything that's happening in Walefield as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019.
This is everything that's happening in Walefield as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019.

Based across Leeds and Wakefield, the festival will last for 100 days, and aims to build on Yorkshire’s rich history as the birthplace of pioneering sculptors.

Backed by Wakefield Council, Wakefield College, Arts Council England and Leeds 2023, Yorkshire Sculpture International will involved a number of events across the Wakefield district.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Take a look at the list below to find out what's happening near you:

Wakefield City Centre

➡️ Huma Bhabha, Receiver

"Huma Bhabha is making one of our major outdoor commissions for the festival, a new work for Wakefield city centre. This is the artist’s first public realm commission in the UK." The sculpture is on display outside County Hall. Click here for more details.

➡️ Weekend Tour

Tours of the city centre will be held each Saturday until the end of the festival. "Join a member of the Yorkshire Sculpture International team for an in-depth introduction to the new sculptural commissions and their public realm locations on a free, accessible guided tour." For further details, click here.

➡️ Street Party

"Join us at our street party to celebrate the arrival of Yorkshire Sculpture International in Wakefield. With food, art, music and performances, drop in and join us throughout the afternoon and celebrate our new public sculpture commission by Huma Bhabha." The party will take place on Sunday, June 23, from 1pm.

The Hepworth Wakefield

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The Hepworth promises to present its "most ambitious exhibition to date", with a series of new commissions and presentations from established and emerging artists. For further details on all events, visit the Hepworth website.

➡️ A conversation about sculpture and place with Huma Bhabha

World-renowned artist Huma Bhaba will discuss her work, influences and a major new commission for Wakefield city centre, in a talk on Saturday, June 22. Click here for more details.

➡️ Tarek Atoui’s Shuffle Orchestra

"Tarek Atoui (b. 1980, Beirut) is a composer and sound artist who works with innovative electroacoustic instruments. These are activated as part of installations to explore different methods of listening, composition, and performance."

➡️ Tarek Atoui Family Sessions

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Weekly half hour interactive sessions will bring Tarek Atoui's work to life. Click here.

➡️ Introductory curator tour

"Celebrate the opening day of Yorkshire Sculpture International at The Hepworth Wakefield with a special free introductory curator tour of installations by Jimmie Durham, Wolfgang Laib, Nairy Baghramian, Tau Lewis and Tarek Atoui." Saturday, June 22. Click here.

➡️ Jimmie Durham

"The series of encounters with the individual artists will begin with a display of recent works by Jimmie Durham (b. 1940, USA) positioned in conversation with early sculptures and carvings by Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, highlighting how each artist created their work to emphasise the natural properties of raw materials."

➡️ Wolfgang Laib

"A major new installation by Wolfgang Laib, who only uses raw natural resources in his work, will take over one of The Hepworth Wakefield’s largest galleries. Created with rice and pollen collected by the artist over a number of years from the fields surrounding his home, Laib explores the organic and life-giving qualities of the materials he uses, reflected in his meditative working practices of collecting and installing."

➡️ Nairy Baghramian

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"Nairy Baghramian will display works from her Maintainersseries, recent sculptures that combine aluminium casts, coloured wax and lacquer painted braces with cork. The resolute materiality of each independent element is seemingly contradicted by the tentative physical relationships between them, which suggest the possibility of continuous rearrangement."

➡️ Tau Lewis

"The exhibition will also include the debut presentation outside of North America of self-taught, Jamaican-Canadian artist, Tau Lewis. A newly commissioned body of work will be on display featuring a large-scale collaged textile hanging, forms composed of found objects and soft figurative works with hand-carved plaster faces and feet."

➡️ Summer Fair

"The Hepworth Wakefield’s annual Summer Fair returns this August, with something for all the family – from creative workshops in our new garden to pop-up music, dance and story telling performed by Yorkshire-based artists and community groups." For more details, click here.

➡️ Daily Tour

"Join a member of The Hepworth Wakefield’s visitor experience team for a tour of galleries 1 – 6 focusing on the themes of Yorkshire Sculpture International." Click here for more information.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The home of sculpture in the county, it's no surprise that YSP will be taking part in the festival. A number of sculptures will be installed at the park during the festival:

➡️ Kimsooja: To Breathe"Kimsooja transforms the historic chapel at Yorkshire Sculpture Park with To Breathe, an enthralling installation using light and mirrors and the latest in a series of projects exploring meditative qualities of space." Click here for more details.

➡️ Damien Hirst"At Yorkshire Sculpture Park, four sculptures by Damien Hirst will be placed in the newly revived 18th-century Deer Park for Yorkshire Sculpture International." The Virgin Mother, Charity, Myth and The Hat Makes the Man will all be on display. Click here for more details.

➡️ David Smith: Sculpture 1932–1965"This major exhibition of work by the great American artist David Smith (1906–1965) features more than 50 sculptures, drawn from four decades, beginning with Smith’s earliest experimental works from the 1930s, through to the bold, large-scale statements of the 1960s." Click here for more details.

➡️ Introductory curator tours

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Led by members of Yorkshire Sculpture Park staff, these tours will offer insights into significant displays of work. For the Introductory Curator Tour to Kimsooja and Damien Hirst, click here, or for the Introductory Curator Tour to David Smith, click here➡️ After dark curator tours

These special after-hours tour are a unique opportunity an in-depth exploration of some of the sculpture park's most incredible sculpture. For more information on the After Hours Damien Hirst tour, click here. For the After Hours Curator tour of David Smith's work, click here.

➡️ Associated Matter

"Celebrate the launch of Yorkshire Sculpture International (YSI) at a special preview of the Associated Matter pop-up exhibition, which showcases work by the five Yorkshire-based YSI Associate Artists. Meet the artists and curators, and enjoy refreshments outside the Bothy Gallery." The exhibition will be on display from Saturday, June 22 to Sunday, July 7. Click here for more information.

A meet the artists event will also be held on Saturday, June 29.

➡️ Kimsooja, Artist Talk

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"Join internationally renowned South Korean artist Kimsooja as she discusses her ideas and practice, revealing the background to her enthralling new YSP Chapel installation, To Breathe." The event will take place at 6.30pm on Thursday, July 18. For further details, click here.

➡️ To Breathe: Sculptures in the Sky

"Join us to create a collaborative outdoor artwork inspired by Kimsooja’s work To Breathe. Create an ever-expanding installation of shimmering rainbows which frame the landscape. Immerse yourself within the installation and marvel at a spectacle of bubbles which float, dance and disappear creating rainbow sculptures in the sky." Click here.

All information taken from the Yorkshire Sculpture International website. For a full list of the festival's events, please click here.