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23 23 MARCH 2010 2010 - - JANUARY JANUARY 2011 2011

he Fitzwilliam Museum Sculpture
Promenade, established in
2009, provides a showcase for
contemporary and modern sculpture on
the lawns of The Fitzwilliam Museum.
Free to all and accessible from the main
thoroughfare of central Cambridge, the
works are displayed for ten months. This
year’s installation has been selected and
organised by the Museum’s Director
Timothy Potts and Cambridge sculptor
Helaine Blumenfeld, past Vice-President
of the Royal British Society of Sculptors
(RBS). The fourteen works by six
sculptors were selected from submissions
by members of the RBS, and will be on
display until January 2011.
The works are illustrated and described in
this brochure based on texts supplied by
the artists.
The expansive lawns and historic façade of
the Museum provide a striking backdrop
for the display of contemporary art, which
these installations seek to exploit.
The works have been designed for
outdoor display, where they interact
physically and aesthetically with their
landscape and with visitors. Some are
conceived and fashioned in ways that
respond to changes in light, weather and
the seasons; here the effects of exposure
to the elements are welcomed as part
of the works’ dynamic and evolving
character. Visitors are invited to walk
amongst the sculptures and interact with
them. Touching is permitted - unlike
inside the Museum - although climbing
and any other activity that could cause
personal injury or damage to the works
are not. Comments on the Promenade,
through the Museum’s website, are
welcome!
Dr Timothy Potts
Director

ROB WARD
Two
Stainless steel
1 2 3
Screen
Stainless steel
Rob Ward lives and works in Hebden
Bridge, West Yorkshire. His work
has been commissioned worldwide,
and exhibited internationally. Ward’s
exhibitions include Scultura Internationale
in Italy, 20th Century British Sculpture at
the Guggenheim Museum in Venice, a
retrospective exhibition at The Henry
Moore Study Centre and a major show
at the Shanghai Sculpture Park in China.
Educated at Newcastle University and
Reading University, the artist also gained
scholarships to Greece and Italy.
Ward’s work is an ongoing dialogue
between drawing and sculpture,
exploring the spaces between two
and three dimensions - the actual and
metaphysical spaces which create spatial
tension. His sculpture incorporates
the viewer into a relationship which
is, says Ward, “meditative, reflective
and mindful of the sanctity of place”.
The works exhibited at the Sculpture
Promenade are part of a series exploring
Buttress
Stainless steel
architectural form in a sculptural context.
These three works are constructed in
mirror-polished stainless steel to allow
them to reflect their surroundings, as
well as their place and relationship to the
viewer.
Each work deals with a different
sculptural idea, with regard to scale,
movement and drawing, and is conceived
as a form which allows drawing to
happen on its surface, “activating
the passing of time”. Two articulates
itself through a series of cuts in space,
inverting itself to offer a double take
on the idea of reflection. Screen, by
contrast, is designed to be walked along,
diminishing in size, with the end element
reflecting and doubling the lower part of
the sculpture. Buttress is a robust, offset
symmetrical form, describing a familiar
shape in a new aspect.
ANGELA CONNER
Wave
Carbon resin &
stainless steel
4 5 6
Poise
Stainless steel & resin with
marble dust
Angela Conner’s sculptures harness
the forces of our environment - water,
wind, gravity and sun. These natural
elements move and unfold the forms in
her work, which ranges from immense
landscape sculptures to small intimate
pieces. She has made both indoor and
outdoor mobiles thought to be the tallest
in the world. Conner is represented in
many public and private collections, and
in major museums both nationally and
internationally. She has been awarded
the Institute of American Architects
Honour Award for sculpture and codesign
of the Heinz Plaza, Pittsburgh
USA, and her 129 ft sculpture Wave
in Ireland was given the Business to
Arts Award. She won the Kinetic Art
International Organisation’s first prize,
amongst others.
Conner’s original interest in natural
elements stems from her nomadic
childhood. One of this period’s few
constants was a stream at the bottom
of the garden of a Dorset holiday home,
and Conner frequently played with water
and the effect of wind on objects she
made. “All children play with simple
Sway II
Stainless steel & resin with
metal finish
things - twigs, cardboard, mud - then
they stop as young teenagers, wanting
man-made things,” says Conner. “I just
carried on.” As an adult after sculpting
in the United States, she returned to
England where she worked for Barbara
Hepworth. Encouraged by this, she set
up her studio in London and has been
based there since.
Conner is crucially aware of the pressures
of the modern world, and creates
tranquil images as a counterbalance.
In a literal sense, this understanding of
balance is a theme in all her work.
The six elements that make up Poise
sway slowly in the wind, with their
shapes causing patches of light to play
and change over the surfaces of the
sculpture. Sway II is developed from
the shapes explored in Poise, with the
elements further refined and elongated
to produce a dominant piece. Wave,
the tallest of the three, is inspired by
Conner’s fascination with the energy of
the Turkish calligraphy she encountered
while exhibiting at the Istanbul Biennale.
Moved by the breeze, the pointed top
scribes a line in the sky.

NICK TURVEY
Chief
Corten steel & enamel paint
Nick Turvey’s approach to sculpture is
influenced by his training as an architect,
followed by fifteen years making films.
He returned to study sculpture at the
Royal College of Art, graduating with
an MA in 2006, and lives and works
in London. In the last few years he
has completed several large public
commissions, as well as residencies in
Venice and Delhi.
Turvey’s interest lies in forms that are
elemental, but intermediate between
recognisable objects - “in this way”, says
Turvey, “one could make connections
with the work of Tony Cragg, Olafur
Eliasson and Anish Kapoor, yet equally
important to me are composers such as
Ligeti and Xenakis, similarly fascinated
by the lyrical potential of mathematics.”
Turvey also cites as influences the
“darker, absurdist visions” of Samuel
Beckett, David Lynch and Hieronymus
Bosch - even the “graphic brilliance” of
cartoons such as Ren and Stimpy.
In recent work, Turvey has been
developing “a new kind of realism, using
abstraction to trigger responses at a
7
Venus
Moulded fibreglass
8
neural level”. Venus and Chief are taken
from his current ‘Incarnate’ series, in
which a simple, rhythmic form is the
starting point for various transformations,
much like a set of musical variations.
Each piece exploits the associations of a
specific material, examining the human
body as a physical object, and the role
it plays in myth, propaganda, dream
and fetish. Describing Chief as “skeletal,
lacerated, wetly red and rusty,” Turvey
says that the work “reeks with the pathos
of toppled dictators, heroic warriors; the
body as a totem, a weapon.” Of Venus,
the artist comments that “classically,
the goddess of love was paired with the
god of war, but this Venus - soft, bulging,
enveloping - provokes both lust and
disgust, putting us into an uncomfortably
child-like viewpoint.” “These primal
reactions”, says Turvey, “reveal the
overwhelming nature of our desire to see
ourselves reflected in the world around
us”.
Nick Turvey gratefully acknowledges
support from Benson-Sedgwick Engineering
Ltd. and Hammerite Worldwide.
ANN CHRISTOPHER
9
Beyond Silence
Bronze
Line of Silence
Bronze
Ann Christopher studied sculpture at
Harrow School of Art and the West of
England College of Art between 1965
and 1969. On leaving college she set up a
studio, initially earning a living by working
technically for other sculptors and
working in a fine art foundry. Producing
and exhibiting her own work from the
very beginning, this technical skill and
knowledge is used to the full in her work.
She was elected to the Royal Academy in
1980 and as a fellow of the RBS in 1992.
She lives and works near Bath.
Christopher’s non-figurative sculpture,
usually in cast metal, ranges in size from
20 to 600 cm, with many of the larger
works being commissioned for public
and private spaces in the UK, Europe and
the USA. On the origins and inspiration
for her work Christopher says: “The
origins of an idea can only be sought and
sometimes discovered in retrospect.
I am aware that I become obsessed
with certain visual experiences - specific
10 11
Held Shadow
Corten steel
shapes or lines, and know that they
will feed into my work at some
point in the future. In fact, every
part of my life fuels the store for a
future sculpture.”
Rock formations and cut lines were
a strong influence on the three
works in the Sculpture Promenade.
The titles also provide clues, with
Line of Silence and Beyond Silence
referring to the silent powerful
presence a sculpture should have;
“the power of standing stones”.
Held Shadow is a more descriptive
title, but “alludes to the ephemeral
quality of the shadows now
becoming an obsession”. “These
sculptures”, says Christopher,
“are about solitude and presence,
and demand contemplation; not
searching for the familiar or known,
but allowing time for this interconnection.”

NICK HORNBY
12
I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird (Coco Chanel)
Resin, glass fibre, paint
Nick Hornby is an emerging British
sculptor, described by ES magazine as
“a new Gormley” and featured in the
Evening Standard’s “Who to Watch in
2010” list. In January he was shortlisted
for the inaugural £45,000 Spitalfields
Sculpture Prize. Recent works in 2009
include Walking in Our Mind at the
South Bank Centre, and The Ghost in the
Machine at Tate Britain. He has been
awarded the Clifford Chance Sculpture
Prize, the Deidre Hubbard Sculpture
Award and shortlisted by Cornelia Parker
for the Mark Tanner Sculpture Prize.
This sculpture comes from a body
of work that concerns the origin of
ideas and how artworks are read and
interpreted. Of his inspirations, Hornby
says: “Where does an idea come from? Is
it always the sum of many other ideas? Is
it always borrowed or stolen? Rodin
didn’t invent thinking, or Van Gogh
sunflowers. If artworks are always the
product of sources and inspiration, is
an artwork always divisible to the
sum of its parts, or can it become
so cooked that you lose sight of its
origin?”
For the 2010 Sculpture Promenade,
Hornby created a sculpture from
the projected imaginary space
that exists between three other
sculptures: Hepworth’s Form III,
Rodin’s Walking Man, and Brancusi’s
Bird in Space. The sculptures are
distributed around 360º so that
each has equal influence over the
final object. Hornby’s work, with its
“tricky, liminal personality”, reveals
its sources and gives the viewer
a puzzle asking questions about
authorship and autonomy.
“According to Lévi-Strauss,” says
Hornby, “the trickster is almost
always a raven or a coyote. In this
case it is a form, a man and a bird.”
MICHAEL LYONS
Unity of Opposites: Vortex
Copper
Michael Lyons studied at the Hornsey
College of Art and the University of
Newcastle, and was formerly Head of
Sculpture at Manchester Metropolitan
University. A founding Member of
the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 1997
and Vice President of the Royal British
Society of Sculptors from 1994 to 1997,
Lyons has taken up artistic residencies at
institutions in Beijing and Shanghai, and has
represented Britain in sculpture symposia
and biennales around the world. In 2003
he won the Yuzi Prize (1st Prize) at the 1st
Guilin Yuzi Paradise International Sculpture
Awards and the Premio Fondo Nacional
de las Artes at Chaco Biennale, Resistencia,
Argentina in 2006.
Lyons lives and works in Cawood,
Yorkshire, but has worked and travelled
extensively abroad, with travels to China
and Mexico in particular having a profound
effect on his life and ideas. His upbringing
in the heart of the Industrial Midlands
heavily informed his early constructed
steel sculpture, although this mechanical
sensibility has now given way to more
organic forms, and working with plaster
and clay allows Lyons to imbue his
works with a new fluidity. In whatever
medium, Lyons’ sculpture is dynamic and
13 14
Energy of the Mountain:
Echo and Revelation
Copper
monumental; it relies on a formal
strength informed by poetic allusion
and layers of meaning. His work
draws upon mythology, the forces
of nature and primitive cultures,
often relating directly to the places in
which he travels.
The two works on display, Unity of
Opposites: Vortex and Energy of the
Mountain: Echo and Revelation, have
been described as exploring the
tensions that exist within modern
society between materialistic
cravings and spiritual needs. Chinese
sculptor and art historian Professor
Li Xiu Qin compares Lyons’ work to
the teachings of ancient philosopher
Zhuang Zi: that the journey towards
self-knowledge is the ultimate goal
of human existence, and selfdestruction
is the result of seeking
fame, wealth and power at the
expense of this spiritual pursuit.
“These two works”, says Li, “express
the way in which human beings exist
in a whirlpool of spirit and matter,
with movement both forward
and backward. From within these
contradictions comes the search for
balance, order and harmony.”

GROUND PLAN
COURTYARD
ENTRANCE
ROB WARD
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
Two
Stainless steel
Screen
Stainless steel
Buttress
Stainless steel
2
Wave
Carbon resin & stainless steel
3
4
5
7
TRUMPINGTON STREET
Poise
Stainless steel & resin with marble dust
Sway II
Stainless steel & resin with metal finish
NICK TURVEY
7
8
Venus
Moulded fibreglass
Chief
Corten steel & enamel paint
6
8
FOUNDER’S
BUILDING
12
9
14
13
MAIN
ENTRANCE NORTH
LAWN
CAFÉ
ANN CHRISTOPHER
9
10
11
12
Beyond Silence
Bronze
Line of Silence
Bronze
Held Shadow
Corten steel
ANGELA CONNER NICK HORNBY
13
14
I never wanted to weigh more
heavily on a man than a bird
(Coco Chanel)
Resin, glass fibre, paint
MICHAEL LYONS
Unity of Opposites: Vortex
Copper
Energy of the Mountain:
Echo and Revelation
Copper
10
11
Cover and introduction images © The Fitzwilliam Museum
Rob Ward
Sculpture photography © Rob Ward
Artist image © Rob Ward
Angela Conner
Sculpture photography © Angela Conner
Artist image © Nat Rea
Nick Turvey
Sculpture photography © Nick Turvey
Artist image © Oliver Curtis
Ann Christopher
Sculpture photography © Ann Christopher
Artist image © Steve Russell
Nick Hornby
Sculpture photography © Nick Hornby
Artist image © Sam Pelly
Michael Lyons
Energy of the Mountain: Echo and Revelation © University of Bolton
Unity of Opposites: Vortex © Mike Lyons
Artist image © University of Bolton

Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1RB
www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk