Galleries and outdoor cultural spaces reopening this April
Spring has sprung and so has the art world. Lockdown is easing and our April Cultural Diary is filled with exhibitions to enjoy both in person and online. Outdoor cultural spaces are once again welcoming visitors, and though museums in England will remain closed until 17 May, from 12 April commercial galleries are reopening. Plus, we’ve rounded up some of the best fiction and non-fiction hitting the shelves. Read on for our recommendations of what to do, see and read this month.
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield
The rolling landscape of Yorkshire Sculpture Park is open for local visitors, who are free to explore the 100-plus works by starry artists from Barbara Hepworth to Andy Goldsworthy throughout its gardens, fields and woodland. Six monumental sculptures by the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos currently populate the parkland as part of an extended exhibition that stretches across the grounds and Underground Gallery.
A new show devoted to artist, designer and maker Alison Milner is now installed in the YSP Centre and Shop and available to view online. Alison Milner: Decorative Minimalist explores the relationship between nature and the built environment and centres on a large-scale ceramic mural inspired by the life and culture of this beloved Yorkshire institution.
Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, Hertfordshire
For those of you in London, the green and pleasant grounds of Henry Moore’s former home and studio are just a short train ride away. The Hertfordshire estate reopens to the public on 31 March, once again inviting visitors to get to know the 20th century British sculptor’s iconic pieces as he intended, displayed in the countryside where he made them.
Moore and his wife, Irina, moved to the village of Perry Green near Much Hadham in 1940. Throughout his lengthy career he created a steady stream of smooth, glossy female figures and abstract forms. In Hertfordshire, more than 20 of his vast bronze sculptures stand proud in the gardens, orchards and surrounding sheep fields. If you’re lucky, you might even see some lambs too.
Allez La France!, Saatchi Yates, London
Among the exhibitions opening at London galleries on 12 April is this group show of works by Jin Angdoo, Mathieu Julien, Hams Klemens and Kevin Pinsembert. Named after the chant sung by French football fans, the exhibition brings together new large-scale works by this collective of four artists to consider the legacy of France’s artistic traditions.
The group have painted murals on shared walls between Marseille and Paris and are interested in creating bold and colourful works that exist outside the art world and are readily available to the public. This will be the first time their pieces, which toggle between street art and abstract expressionism, have been displayed together in a gallery.
Rachel Whiteread: Internal Objects, Gagosian, London
When you’ve had your fill of colour at Saatchi Yates, head on over to Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill gallery to see new work by Rachel Whiteread. Cabin-like structures carefully coated in white household paint occupy the two main rooms of the exhibition.
While the Turner Prize-winning artist’s sculptures typically take the form of casts, these wood-and-metal structures have been built from scratch; despite the departure from her usual process, they continue her lifelong project of considering the familiar yet often overlooked spaces that surround us. Also on show are resin sculptures, bronze casts and works on paper.
Idris Khan: The Seasons Turn, Victoria Miro, London
While Rachel Whiteread’s new work was inspired by the writing of American author John Steinbeck, it’s the music of composers such as Bach, Chopin and Schubert that has stirred Idris Khan. Taking its name from Vivaldi’s baroque masterpiece, The Seasons Turn captures nature’s changing rhythms and colours and makes a case for music being seen as well as heard.
Comprising two installations, the show will present 28 watercolour and oil collaged works on paper that incorporate fragments of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and a series of rich blue paintings that the artist created in response to the tumultuous past year. From 13 April to 15 May.
A Year With The Jerwood Collection, The Harley Gallery, Nottinghamshire
The first in a quartet of exhibitions from The Jerwood Collection of modern and contemporary British art will open at The Harley Gallery on 17 April. The year-long collaboration will be the privately owned collection’s first residency, offering visitors to the rural Welbeck estate the chance to see works from the 20th and 21st centuries alongside its existing display of more historic art. Each of the four exhibitions will be overseen by a different collector and feature pieces by renowned British artists from David Hockney and LS Lowry to Maggi Hambling and Rose Wylie.
April fiction releases
First up this month is the new book from Gwendoline Riley, My Phantoms (Granta), a darkly funny novel about a toxic mother-daughter relationship. Elizabeth Bowen devotees will be glad to hear that Vintage is publishing a new volume of the late great author’s short fiction: Selected Stories, introduced by Tessa Hadley, stretches from the Irish countryside to the streets of London and spans the 1920s to the postwar years.
Set on the fictional archipelago of Popisho, This One Sky Day (Faber) by Leone Ross is a dazzling exploration of love and addiction. From the Caribbean to the Antarctic: Jon McGregor’s latest, Lean Fall Stand (4th Estate) considers the meaning of courage in the wake of a calamitous research expedition. And finally, the Southbank Centre has a whole host of brilliant online author talks scheduled this spring, among them Kazuo and Naomi Ishiguro in Conversation.
April non-fiction releases
Among the new biographies being published this month are two that are particularly worth bookmarking: Mark Hussey’s Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism (Bloomsbury) paints a compelling portrait of a pioneering voice in art, while Alicia Foster’s Nina Hamnett, the latest instalment in Eiderdown Books’ terrific series on modern women artists, celebrates the talented modernist painter.
For interiors inspiration, pick up By Design (Phaidon), a richly illustrated rollcall of the world’s best contemporary interior designers, and Carolyn Dunster’s Cut & Dry: The Modern Guide to Dried Flowers (Laurence King), which offers a contemporary take on a classic craft. Last but not least, Olivia Laing’s Everybody: A Book about Freedom (Picador) is a bold and insightful investigation into bodies in peril and bodies as a force for change.
