As we enter the summer months, there’s a universal desire to get outside. The trees are green, flowers are in full bloom and the sun is shining well into the evening. These five exhibitions are bringing contemporary art into nature, placing sculptures in dialogue with the environment. Each one offers visitors the opportunity to witness art outside of the confined of white walls and gallery spaces, getting up close to creativity on a monumental scale. Major names like Yayoi Kusama, Lynn Chadwick and Henry Moore take up new space, whilst Nic Nicosia and Nicola Turner transform familiar museums into new experiences.
Houghton Hall presents a new exhibition of sculpture by the celebrated post-war British artist Lynn Chadwick (1914 – 2003). This new retrospective spans four decades of the artist’s career, from the 1950s to the 1990s, showcasing previously unseen works alongside his best-known sculptures across the house and grounds. It forms the largest display of Chadwick’s work in the UK in more than two decades, following the artist’s death and retrospective at Tate Britain’s Devon Galleries in 2003. Five large-scale pieces are installed in the gardens, their precise lines and coruscating surfaces contrasting with the organic backdrop. Many of those featured are Chadwick’s stainless steel works, a medium he began experimenting with in the 1980s to provide scope to create sharper profiles infused with dynamic energy.
Nic Nicosia has enjoyed a five-decade career, coming to prominence in the 1980s as part of the Pictures Generation. His latest show celebrates the past 25-years of practice, with a particularly fresh focus on his sculptures. Everyday Surreal features more than 70 three-dimensional works, drawings, photographs and films made since his mid-career survey in 1999-2000. Initially drawn to photography, Nicosia began making sculptures consistently in 2009, experimenting with paper clay and hydrocal to produce eccentric personages, whimsical wire portraits and anonymous male figures taking on various poses and personas. More recently, Nicosia has expanded his creative output to include experimenting cast metal, such as Bighands (2010), an eight-foot-tall steel structure that’s permanently in the Nasher collection.
Time’s Scythe is a brand-new installation by British artist Nicola Turner, that breathes new life into Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s 18th century Chapel. The installation was created inside the building using recycled wool and horsehair, which is hand-stitched inside mesh to create the work’s bulbous tendrils. Beginning outdoors, the work spills from the Chapel bell tower and enters through an upper window, before cascading over the balcony to fill the gallery space. This exhibition marks a departure from Turner’s darker, more melancholic character, instead favouring pale wool. The artist’s work often incorporates found historical objects, and here, she employs traditional sheep sheers at the end of each tendril. The natural earthy smell of the wool creates a tactile, sensory experience as you walk around the tentacles.
Kew Gardens showcases a once-in-a-generation presentation of artworks by Henry Moore, one of the most influential and internationally recognised artists of the 20th century. Monumental Nature represents the largest and most comprehensive showcase of Moore’s work to date, featuring 30 works across Kew’s varied landscape and inside the iconic Temperate House. It’s a perfect setting, as throughout Moore’s career, a connection to nature remained a constant theme, reflected in his ability to transform its beauty into abstract forms. Moore believed that landscapes provided the perfect setting for his sculptures, where the natural architecture of the environment could amplify their visual and emotional impact. Visitors to the show are encouraged to reflect on how they perceive and interact with the natural world.
Goodwood Art Foundation, Chichester | Until 1 November
This summer, Goodwood Art Foundation offers a packed programme, featuring international artists like Polly Apfelbaum, Nancy Holt, Lee Fan, Hélio Oiticica and Eva Rothschild. At the heart of this is Yayoi Kusama, one of the world’s most prominent contemporary artists. Working across drawing, painting, collage, soft sculpture, film, installation, performance, writing, and commercial projects for more than seventy years, she has developed a diverse and highly personal body of work that addresses ideas of infinity and “self-obliteration.” Kusama is known for several motifs: pumpkins, mirrors, polka dots. The latter comes to the fore at Goodwood, where an iconic example of Kusama’s massive sculptural forms will showcase her lifelong exploration of infinity through repetitive forms and dots.
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
1. Yayoi Kusama, Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart (2023). Photo credit: Ciaran McCrickard, PA Media Assignments Artwork credit © Yayoi Kusama.
2. Lynn Chadwick at Houghton Hall, 2 May – 4 October 2026. Courtesy of the artist’s estate/Pangolin London. Photo Steve Russell Studios.
3. Nic Nicosia: Everyday Surreal, Nic Nicosia, bighands, 2010 (enlarged and cast 2020), Stainless steel, 94 x 86 x 106 inches (238.8 x 218.4 x 269.2 cm). Photo by Kevin Todora.
4. Nicola Turner, Myth and Miasma, 2022. Photo Copyright Nicola Turner.
5.Three Piece Sculpture Vertebrae 1968-69. Photo Jonty Wilde.
6. The Duke of Richmond and Gordon pictured in front of Yayoi Kusama, Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart (2023). Photo credit: Ciaran McCrickard, PA Media Assignments Artwork credit © Yayoi Kusama.
