Stories & Videos
Contemporary Art

Monumental Sculptures in Stately Surroundings

Launch Slideshow

Zaha Hadid’s sculpturally stunning Lilas pavilion is at the heart of this year's Beyond Limits exhibition - and with calligraphic arcs rising to 5.5 metres it is both a bold architectural statement and one of the most ambitious installations to be presented at Chatsworth to date. Now entering its second decade, the exhibition has firmly established itself as one of the most prestigious platforms for the display and sale of modern and contemporary outdoor sculpture, and a key event in the art world calendar. Click ahead to see some of the highlights from this year’s exhibition.

Beyond Limits
10 September–30 October | Derbyshire, UK

Monumental Sculptures in Stately Surroundings

  • Cristina Iglesias, Habitación Vegetal XV (doble pasaje), 2008.
    In the early 1990s, Cristina Iglesias began her Espacios Vegetales, a series of installations which are architectural in form and contemporary in their minimalist design. However, their restrained exteriors reveal interior chambers where the natural organic world is reconstructed through a variety of media and visual effects.

    Share
  • Zaha Hadid, Lilas, 2007.
    Zaha Hadid, dubbed ‘Queen of the Curve’, has transformed the landscape of modern architecture. Imbuing her designs with her vivacious personality, she creates highly expressive, sweeping forms that evoke the flux of contemporary life.

    Share
  • Bruce Munro, Time and Again, 2016
    Time and Again was conceived specifically for the Canal Pond at Chatsworth House and comprises 108 individual steel lily pads. The lily appealed to Munro for its simplicity and symmetry, characteristics which lend themselves to the creation of the routines and patterns that have often been central to the artist’s work. 

    Share
  • Joana Vasconcelos, Fruitcake, 2011.
    Fruitcake comes from Joana Vasconcelos’s Treats series, in which the artist explores ideas and imagery which pertain to our contemporary consumerist culture. Combining immense scale with captivating colours, Vasconcelos references commercial strategies of temptation. The simple steel frame, however, is a reminder of the hollowness of this culture, where sales are pinned on strategies of seduction rather than substance.

    Share
  • Fernando Botero, Donna Sdraiata, 2012.
    Fernando Botero’s Donna Sdraiata is a magnificent example of the sculptor’s celebrated female nudes. The model references the venerable tradition of the female odalisque, the languorous nude immortalised by painters from Titian to Ingres. However, in contrast to the delicate proportions of, for example Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque (1814, Musée du Louvre, Paris), Botero’s iteration of the theme conveys an impressive monumentality.

    Share
  • Ju Ming, Taichi Arch, 2000.
    The inspiration for Ju Ming's Taichi series originated from the artist's own practice of the ancient form of Chinese martial arts which he took up in the 1970s on the advice of his artistic mentor Yang Yu Yu; the objective was to develop the artist's physical and mental discipline. The Taichi works marked the beginning of Ming's practice of abstract art and remain one of his most acclaimed series.

    Share
  • Lynn Chadwick, Black Beast, 1960.
    Exuding an undeniable sense of power and presence, Black Beast is a striking example of Chadwick’s series of Beasts, which the sculptor commenced in 1955 and continued to develop over the following decade. Not directly representing any particular animal, Black Beast assumes a mythical dimension, becoming a universal signifier of the animal kingdom at its most primal and powerful.

    Share
  • Wendell Castle, Wandering Mountain (2014), Temptation (2014) and Above Within Beyond (2015) [left to right].
    Wendell Castle’s work has consistently sought to challenge artistic conventions and to break down the barriers that have traditionally separated the worlds of design and fine art. Cast in bronze and designed with an outdoor setting in mind, these three works combine a solemn monumentality with a natural fluidity of form.

    Share
  • Charles Hadcock, Hexad III, 2014.
    In Hexad III, Charles Hadcock juxtaposes the clearly visible screws and joins which give the work its mechanical materiality against the richly textured outer surface which is cast direct from a riverbed stone, incorporating fragments and fossils accumulated over millennia. This combination of the modern and mechanical with the historical and natural is a recurring narrative in Hadcock’s work.

    Share
  • Aristide Maillol, La Montagne, premier état, 1936–37.
    La Montagne is the culmination of Aristide Maillol’s interest in the form of the seated female nude. The sheer size of the work renders it an extremely powerful monument but the soft lines, sinuous curves and gentle features make it equally a statement of elegance and poise. La Montagne in its monumental lead form can also be seen in the Jardin des Tuileries, Paris; the present work is the very final cast from the small edition.

    Share
/
Close