Glyndebourne is delighted to announce Sculpture (1504-2017), a solo presentation
of new monumental works by British sculptor Nick Hornby. The collaboration, a first between Glyndebourne and the artist, coincides with the 2017 summer season of opera and will remain on display until August 27th 2017.Sculptures will be on display in the gardens and the house. In each piece Horny has hybridised key historic artworks. Visitors to Glyndebourne may recognise in Hornby's work fragments of Michelangelo, Rodin, Brancusi and Matisse.
Hornby's works are meeting points between digital technologies and the legacies of sculpture, alongside an astute critique of art history. His sculptures are created through complex processes, involving both high-tech production methods and traditional handcrafted techniques. Both the computer and hand are put to use to create large-scale silhouettes and extruded forms in bronze, marble or resin. These art works provide shifting perspectives and viewpoints (both physical and metaphorical) of the art object, and the histories it is tied to.
Exclusively for After Nyne, the Artist Talks About the Work In This Stunning Exhibition
The bust in the Rose Garden is the re purposing of a leaf from a Matisse cut-out. His cutouts have this double poignancy - the incredibly joyous colour and bright pictures all made in his last couple of years when he was often very sick - working from his bedroom. He said he could "bring the outside in" - filling his room with cuttings of extraordinary leaves and pomegranates.
Hunting for a face amongst Matisse's leaves makes me think of Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit. My gesture of this simple extrusion and intersection seems to have done so many things to Matisse's leaf; from one angle a Pinocchio-esque huge nose, but also a a baroque extravagance with countless folds, and a Fleur-de-lis-equse feeling. I think the resultant object is one of my most open and ambiguous yet.
"God Bird Drone" was first commissioned for a site in New York - a busy intersection. This re-make for Glyndebourne feels very different - the "google" pointer is somehow more sinister in this old English garden and Jacobean house.
My two reference points for sculpture in the landscape are Versailles and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. With the former. sculptures are situated with precision at the intersection of geometric rationales and plans. With the latter, the undulating modern figures and hills are almost indistinguishable. Glyndebourne is a curious mix - with the avenues and head rows seamlessly blending into the field of sheep.
NICK HORNBY'S SCULPTURE
(1504-2017) WILL BE OPEN TO ALL 2017
GLYNDEBOURNE FESTIVAL TICKET HOLDERS
THROUGHOUT THE FESTIVAL
NICKHORNBY.COM