Four Square News: Glorious Goodwood - Visit to the Sculpture Park

On a gloriously sunny day on Friday 8th I made my first visit to the Goodwood Sculpture Park near Chichester, West Sussex, UK.The park was the brainchild of Sir Wilfred Cass who after an incredibly successful career as an entrepreneur decided to move to West Sussex, sell off sculptures he and his wife, Jeanette owned, by their friends Henry Moore and Elizabeth Frink and use the money to commission new sculptures by British artists and establish the Cass Foundation. Set in delightful woodland on the Duke of Richmond's estate, the leafy backdrop and verticality of the trees provide a wonderful counterpoint to the extraordinary sculptural forms. This unique environment is both a garden for Wilfred and Jeanette Cass whose house with its glass fronted outlook opens directly onto the park and its vistas across the green fields beyond as well as a huge outdoor gallery space. Indeed we bumped into Wilfred Cass strolling in his 'garden'. The works are rotated, sold and rented out to international galleries and musuems. Works from the park will be shipped off to many of the Olympic venues in London 2012. The aim is cited here as on the website.Through meeting fabrication costs, and other additional costs (including installation and marketing), the Foundation frees artists from the economic constraints that hinder the realisation of their creative ambitions. The Foundation encourages pioneering and experimental works that challenge the creative processes of each artist in order to further their careers and the development of British sculpture.

It would be unusual to respond to every single piece of work in such a large collection but happily there are a huge number of striking pieces and plenty of discussion provoked as to materials, chosen, positioning of the work, what work represented, colour, form and particularly we considered if the evidence of patination, salt from raindrops, bird poo enhanced, influenced or spoilt the beauty of the works we liked and this seem to vary from sculpture to sculpture. There was repetition amongst several artists for which there may be good reason and several of the artists we were expecting to see were not on display - Hepworth, Goldsworthy, Caro, Long, Nash which was disappointing. it is not entirely clear but the inference from the website is that some works have been lent to the recent exhibition of Modern Sculpture at the Royal Academy and its also perfectly possible that others have been lent or sold. However, this meant that we perhaps paid more attention to lesser known names, notably for me: Charlotte Mayer, Douglas White, Diane MacLean, John Isherwood, Gerry Judah, Philip King and Rob Ward. Although I could think of several sculptors not represented and would have liked to have seen more works in natural materials, there is a helpful form to fill in for visitors regarding suggested names.

Opening for the summer season just over a week ago the sculpture park is open until the Autumn. It was almost deserted despite being school holidays. Although this meant that we could enjoy the quiet and the sculptures on their own in the landscape I could not help but feel that it was a shame that there were not more visitors and a lack of expectation of them which was curious. It is not a public space and is in essence a private garden but to become known as a central focus for sculpture in the UK, I would have thought there would be a need to encourage more visitors from all walks of life. The park is in the middles of the country and there is no food available to buy let alone a tearoom and a very small fridge with a few drinks. Fortunately we had decided to bring a picnic because of the weather but if not it would have been a bit miserable especially with hungry, thirsty, tired kids in tow . Looking at art and having discussion about it can enhance the appetite! Perhaps provision could be made outside of the grounds somewhere so it did not intrude on the garden.To get round the whole park takes a good 2 hours and we ended up taking 5. All in all it was a throughly enjoyable day out, the location was beautiful, the staff friendly and helpful and all the better for being understated and lacking in the commerciality of other venues.