Sculpture at Firstsite – the artworks
See artworks by artists Ryan Gander, Julian Opie and Bharti Kher in our new sculpture park and Welcome Area.
In 2021, as part of our 10th anniversary, six works were been installed in the lawns and grounds surrounding Firstsite: The fallow (Bharti Kher, 2019), Imagine you are driving a blue Honda (Julian Opie, 2004), Imagine you are driving a yellow car (Julian Opie, 2004), Everything is learned, I (Ryan Gander, 2010), Kevin (Sarah Lucas, 2013) and Florian (Sarah Lucas, 2013).
We can still enjoy the artworks by Ryan Gander and Bharti Kher in our Sculpture Park.
Experience these artworks up close in the fresh air at any time of day, exploring how these interact with the natural environment, and watch how these transform as the natural light changes and shifts to outdoor lighting as darkness falls.
Ryan Gander, Everything is learned, i, 2010
Purbeck marble
80 x 80 x 80 cm
On loan from Lisson Gallery
Ryan Gander (born 1976, Chester) lives and works in Suffolk and London. He has established an international reputation through artworks that materialise in many different forms – from sculpture to film, writing, graphic design, installation, performance and more besides.
‘Everything is learned, i’, is similar in size and shape to the rock that Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ sits upon.
Carved into the rock is the imprint of the buttocks and heels of a person who has been sitting there for such a period of time to have reshaped the solid surface.
Even though this object is essentially just a rock, the form of a person’s presence causes it to become a place to sit, think and observe for hundreds of years, past, present or future.
Image: Ryan Gander Everything is learned, i, 2010,, Sculpture at Firstsite, 2021. Photograph by Richard Ivey
Bharti Kher, The fallow, 2019
Bronze
360 x 160x 120 cm
On loan from Hauser and Wirth
The work of Bharti Kher (born 1969, London) gives form to the everyday rituals in a way that reassesses and transforms their meaning to yield an air of magical realism.
Now living in New Delhi, India, her use of found objects is informed by her own position as an artist located between geographic and social environment.
‘The fallow’ (2019), a monumental 3.5 metre cast bronze figure, invokes themes of female multiplicity.
Here Kher presents the potency of her goddess through negative space. She is hollowed-out, becoming a product of excavation, with an ornate half-circle exploding from her depths.
Image: Bharti Kher, The fallow, 2019, Sculpture at Firstsite, 2021. Photograph by Richard Ivey
