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Thursday 4 December 2008

Sculptor of vision

Nigel Hall: Sculpture + Drawing 1965–2008
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, until 8 June

As you drive into the 500 acres of 18th-century parkland which provide the magnificent setting for this retrospective of Nigel Hall’s work, you are met by a tall sentinel-like sculpture, which stands near the entrance. Called ‘Crossing Vertical’ (2006), it’s a dynamic column of arcs and perforations, an excellent introduction to the prevailing interests of this artist, whose chief aim is to animate and reveal to us anew the space we inhabit and so often take for granted. This sculpture has a companion piece, ‘Crossing Horizontal’, which currently reclines in front of the main galleries further into the park. Both pieces are fabricated from corten steel, and have that orangey-brown patina of weathering which makes them look more organic than geometric. In ambition and imaginative realisation, they prepare us for an exceptional experience.

As I’ve had occasion to note before, Nigel Hall (born 1943) is not perhaps as well known in this country as he should be. His reputation stands higher internationally than it does here, which is an unforgivable omission on the part of British curators and museum directors. Do we have so much native talent that it can be allowed to go unsung at home? No, we do not, and there isn’t a single sculptor of comparable worth working in the territory that Hall has taken for his own. This in-depth examination of his work in a major British venue is thus long overdue, though it is nevertheless very welcome. It should help to place him where he belongs: firmly in the front rank of sculptors in this country, an artist who brings a sophisticated formal invention and contemplative breadth to both public and private space.

To offer a true perspective on Hall’s achievement over 40 years, work has been borrowed back from many public and private collections, and the resulting exhibition gives a fine account of his sculptural and graphic preoccupations since student days. The earliest work is presented in the Garden Gallery, where some of his witty and original drawings can be seen side by side with such sculptures as ‘Lone Figure with Balloon’, the two ‘Freeze’ pieces, ‘Large Interior’ and ‘Three Silent Shapes’. In these more figurative sculptures, Hall positions figures and objects in space in such a way as to articulate their surroundings in terms of scale and relationship. From the beginning, he showed a particular interest in the spaces between his sculptural elements, the intervals. In a way, these are of as much importance as the elements themselves.

More articles from: Andrew Lambirth | this section

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