Making It: Sculpture in Britain 1977–1986
A touring exhibition from the Arts Council Collection
1 April–21 June 2015
Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Arts Council Collection
7 Longside, Jebb Lane
Haigh, Nr Barnsley, S75 4BS
The late 1970s and 1980s witnessed the emergence of a talented young generation of artists working in the UK who began to receive international attention for practices which, although diverse, share a revived interest in sculpture as a material object and in ideas around making in Britain in the 1980s. Selected by Natalie Rudd (Senior Curator of the Arts Council Collection) with Dr. Jon Wood (Research Curator of the Henry Moore Institute), Making It: Sculpture in Britain 1977–1986 is the first exhibition to survey this exciting moment in British sculpture. It shows how approaches to object making were reinvigorated by earlier breakthroughs in conceptual and performance art and by sculptural inspirations from outside of the UK.Drawn primarily from the holdings of the Arts Council Collection and augmented with major loans from important UK public and private collections, Making It represents the work of over 40 artists and reveals a wide range of sculptural practices, highlighting shared concerns, as well as important differences.
Shared concerns include the exploration of the relationship between objects and images, natural and applied colour, volume and surface, wall and floor. The significance of interior space—the hole, the void, the vessel—is another subject that emerges across a number of these works. The presence of the human form is also evident, either through the actual representation of figures or through the artist’s body intimated through the act of making. The selected works also demonstrate a wide variety of techniques and processes including bending, wrapping, folding, cutting, stacking, bolting and gluing—all used to push natural and man-made materials to their limits. Elsewhere a spirit of recycling and skip-raiding is in evidence, with artists employing a resourceful “DIY” attitude to manipulate found and salvaged materials into surprising new forms with a distinctly urban character.
Artists represented in Making It: Edward Allington, Eric Bainbridge, Phyllida Barlow, Kate Blacker, Boyle Family, Tony Carter, Helen Chadwick, Shelagh Cluett, John Cobb, Stephen Cox, Tony Cragg, Michael Craig-Martin, John Davies, Paul de Monchaux, Richard Deacon, Kenneth Draper, Gareth Fisher, Barry Flanagan, John Gibbons, Antony Gormley, Nigel Hall, Shirazeh Houshiary, Anish Kapoor, George Meyrick, David Nash, Martin Naylor, Paul Neagu, Julian Opie, Margaret Organ, Eduardo Paolozzi, Cornelia Parker, Carl Plackman, Nicholas Pope, Peter Randall-Page, Veronica Ryan, Michael Sandle, Jean-Luc Vilmouth, Shelagh Wakely, Richard Wentworth, Alison Wilding, Glynn Williams, Richard Wilson, Gary Woodley and Bill Woodrow.
Making It is accompanied by a fully illustrated book produced by Hayward Publishing and featuring an insightful lead essay by Jon Wood alongside first-hand accounts from 12 critics, curators and gallerists who helped champion this new sculpture before a national and international audience.
The Hayward Gallery at Southbank Centre plays a key role in creating imaginative, high profile exhibitions in London and within the UK through Hayward Touring. The touring programme and the Arts Council Collection are managed by Southbank Centre on behalf of Arts Council England, and add to the organisation’s distinctive national remit.
We are grateful to the Henry Moore Institute for their research support and for making available the rich resources of the Henry Moore Institute Research Library.
Tours to:
Mead Gallery, University of Warwick: 8 October–29 November 2015
City Art Centre, Edinburgh: 7 May–3 July 2016
