Renowned sculptor Phyllida Barlow is the ‘provocateur’ for the Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019. As provocateur, in 2018, she proposed a series of thought-provoking statements. The festival explores one of the most compelling of these – ‘Sculpture is the most anthropological of the art forms’. The exhibitions and new commissions in Yorkshire Sculpture International are all […]

Working almost entirely in figurative sculpture, Huma Bhabha’s approach is unconventional and cross-cultural, making connections between histories, languages and civilisations. Huma Bhabha is making her first public realm commission in the UK for Yorkshire Sculpture International, which will be on display in Wakefield city centre for the duration of the festival. Assembled and carved from […]

Ayşe Erkmen’s sculptural practice transforms environments as she responds to a particular place through eye catching site-specific interventions that draw our attention to locations and things that are often overlooked or hidden. Erkmen’s work is influenced by the historical, cultural, political and geographical significance of a particular place often incorporating the architectural features of those […]

Tamar Harpaz’s work will be on display at the Henry Moore Institute during Yorkshire Sculpture International. Harpaz is best known for sculptures that use light, mirrors, and lenses to create uncanny optical illusions. Combined into meandering installations, they unfold into narratives that touch on the cinematic and spectacular, but lay bare the simple mechanisms of […]

Rachel Harrison’s work draws from a wide range of influences, combining art historical and pop cultural references through a diverse assemblage of materials. For Yorkshire Sculpture International, she exhibits a group of works that relate to the body.

Inspired by anthropology, linguistics and archaeology Maria Loboda unravels the assignation of meaning to symbols and objects throughout history, re-imagining them into new combinations. For Yorkshire Sculpture International Loboda has created a number of lamps, inspired by a 1920s French design, each encasing select insects. Titled The Chosen, each is a reminder of the human implications and […]

Joanna Piotrowska’s work examines the complex power dynamics and psychological effects of human relationships. For Yorkshire Sculpture International, Piotrowska developed a new project based on a selection of her series of photographs Frantic.  This  series of composed black and white photographs explore notions of the human body and social structures.

Cauleen Smith is an interdisciplinary artist best known for her work in film. Reactivating archives and harnessing the possibilities of imagination, her work especially addresses issues faced by black women today.

Nobuko Tsuchiya uses a variety of media to create imaginative sculptures that evoke an arresting narrative quality. Her work incorporates found household objects including mop buckets, table legs, rags and plastic tubing. Her enigmatic sculptures resemble minimalist mechanisms devoid of function, primitive robots, or curious experiments.

Kimsooja’s practice reflects traditional forms of female labour and craft, and for over 25 years the artist has been inspired by the forms and idea of ‘bottari’ – the South Korean word for a bundle wrapped in fabric. For Yorkshire Sculpture International, Kimsooja transforms Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s historic chapel with a new installation featuring lights […]

What is it like to be sixteen years old in the UK now? This is the central thread running through the national project Sixteen where some of the UK’s foremost documentary portrait photographers collaborated in opening up conversations with young people about their hopes and fears, and who or what sustains them, giving prominence to […]

The Camouflaged Beauty of Fashion is an exhibition of works by Isabelle Van Zeijl.

This exhibition presents the lost art and forgotten story of Britain’s pioneering female painters. It brings together the work of the 17th Century artists Joan Carlile, Mary Beale, and Anne Killigrew. Previously, their stories have faded from view in the broad sweep of British art history, with many of their works being attributed to male artists […]

What do jazz and the blues have in common with seventeenth century Baroque music? The winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women Helen Cammock sensed that lament, the expression of loss and mourning, is central to the history of vocal music and embarked on a six-month journey across Italy to find out. Travelling from Bologna […]

Grete Marks – also known as Margret Marks or Margarete Heymann – was one of the earliest female students of the Bauhaus School. This exhibition, An Intimate Portrait, celebrates a lesser known aspect of the artist’s creative practice through a series of intimate portrait paintings and drawings from the 1920s and 1930s. Marks is best known […]

This major new retrospective explores the development of Sherman’s work from the mid-1970s to the present day, and features around 150 works from international public and private collections, as well as new work never before displayed in a public gallery. Focusing on the artist’s manipulation of her own appearance and her deployment of material derived […]

Consume is a solo show for endangered-animal painter Louise McNaught, whose work celebrates the glory of nature and animals. She uses blazing neon colours and mixed media to give her subjects a godlike, heavenly quality. Louise’s gentle touch highlights the delicate relationship we humans have with nature. ‘Consume’ will present a new body of work by the […]

Ima-Abasi Okon works with sculpture, sound and video to produce installations that explore the historical and political charge of materials. Previous works have included the artist's own jewellery, used as a filter between spaces, or contained within medical liquids. For this exhibition, Okon repurposes industrial and handmade objects, removing their use-value or function, in order to explore the formation of […]

From research in the “special collections” of medical history and the modern labour suite, Anne Bevan and Janice Galloway have put together the words and sculptures of Rosengarten, taking the tools of obstetrics and pairing them with water, light, human hands and garden plants.  Away from the heat and trauma of birth, seen in isolation or […]