Sculpture takes over the garden at ‘Dividing Line’

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Veronica Davies visits an Oxfordshire sculpture show curated by a London gallery

There seems to be a growing interest in sculpture made for installation outdoors, whether in public or private spaces, with an increasing number of both permanent and temporary exhibitions to cater for this interest.  Given this year’s wet summer in the UK, it is to the credit of any gallery whose outdoor shows have gone ahead despite the weather.  The opening of ‘Dividing Line: An Exhibition of Contemporary Outdoor Sculpture’, curated by Mayfair gallery Sumarria Lunn in the gardens of High House in rural Oxfordshire, took place over the weekend of St Swithin’s day, and fortunately the weather stayed relatively dry.  

The venue is a large Victorian house with a formal garden at the front and to one side. As the information provided tells us, the sculptures are produced by nine artists and ‘embody truly contemporary themes, materials, production and ideas’. For a number of those involved this is the ‘first foray’ into outdoor sculpture.  As well as playing host to this current outdoor sculpture exhibition, Martin Jenner, the new owner of High House, has recently opened an art gallery there, and an exhibition of contemporary painting, ‘The Momentarily Absurd’, alsoruns until 16September.

I was shown round the ‘Dividing Line’ exhibition by Will Lunn, one of the directors of Sumarria Lunn, whose art history background was apparent in references both to the classical tradition and the legacy of Surrealist interest in the uncanny, as we walked round and discussed the exhibits.  A work that engages with the latter can be glimpsed through the front gates of High House when approaching from the road: Adeline de Monseignat’s Mother HEB in Mother Nature (2012), a work that incorporates vintage red fox fur encased in a glass sphere that both attracts and repulses the viewer in a way that evokes the work of Surrealist artist, Meret Oppenheim, known amongst other works for her fur teacup, Object (Luncheon in Furs). Further around the garden, de Monseignat’s glass worm-like shapes emerge from water and are in fact home to a living wormery.

Entering the gardens via the side gate, the visitor first encounters a work by Russian artist Nika Neelova, Verge, a concrete cast of a door attached to a timber post with rope, and seemingly in a perpetual state of tension.  Nearby, Dark Matter by David Rickard challenges the viewer’s perception of everyday objects such as buckets and bins, while Shift, by Sam Zealey, uses science in conjunction with art by exploiting the properties of magnets embedded in wood. 

Walking on, we found Element 1 by Andreas Blank, where traditional and often valuable materials for sculpture, such as marble, limestone and basalt, were transformed very effectively into what appeared to be an everyday office workstation by the side of a formal pond.  On the other side, Sam Knowles’ The Likeness of Polycephilles also played with perceptions of the place of classical statuary in a formal garden setting, as well as with notions of grand metanarratives of philosophy or art.  

Concrete Cross-dresser, by Alex Chinneck, had been installed on a lawn a few days earlier, so that the process of weathering could start.  The work brought to mind an Islamic carpet, and Will Lunn pointed out that it included deliberate ‘flaws’ for this reason.  Jiho Won’s piece, Transformed Memory, consisted of two parts, one enclosed, one open to the elements and therefore more subject to change as weather conditions varied.  To finish, we looked at Amy Stephens’ Social Pod, three whale vertebrae mounted on steel rods.  Stephens had spent time in the garden when planning her work, and had noted a similarity in form between the vertebrae and the shapes of Hercules aircraft flying overhead, to and from the military airfield at Brize Norton.

The layout of the gardens at High House means the sculptures are installed in relatively intimate spaces, which emphasized the fact that a piece of outdoor sculpture does not require a vast space to inhabit, and may indeed work very well in a smaller garden. How much more satisfying it would be to support emerging artists and install a unique piece of sculpture rather than a mass-produced object from a garden centre.