Barbara Hepworth: Material Practice in Post-War British Sculpture

芭芭拉·赫普沃斯：战后英国雕塑中的材料实践

• 批准号: AH/V000993/1
• 负责人: Michael White
• 金额: $ 3.05万
• 依托单位: University of York
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FV000993%2F1
• 关键词: Barbara; Hepworth; Material; Practice; Post

How did the major 20th century British sculptor, Barbara Hepworth, transform her artistic ideas into physical reality? How did she manipulate tools and processes to shape resistant matter, and how do they shape the artist in turn? And how did she work with technicians and artisans to turn her models into finished sculptures?These are fundamental questions to ask about the practice of Hepworth, or indeed any sculptor; yet they remain remarkably little explored. This project will seek to begin answering them by bringing together diverse sources of expertise to bear on the unique collection of the Hepworth Wakefield (THW), one of the north of England's most important museums of modern and contemporary art. While most other major holdings of Hepworth's work consist primarily of finished works, the core of THW's collection is the Hepworth Family Gift, is a unique archive of preparatory, technical and personal material. This includes plaster prototypes, bronze casts and carvings, prints and drawings, tools and materials, recipe books and notes/journals. There is further enriched by the loan of a significant portion of Hepworth's personal library. At the moment, this remarkable collection remains poorly understood because of the lack of coordinated research into Hepworth's materials, techniques and processes. Much knowledge exists, but it is currently siloed among curators, conservators, practising artists, technical art historians, and academic art historians. The result is that THW finds it challenging to understand and present its rich holdings. This research network will begin to address this situation by bringing together the diverse specialisms, skills and fields of expertise needed to understand Hepworth's material processes and their relation to her broader cultural aims and interests. It will enable academic art historians, curators at THW and elsewhere, practicing artists, conservators, technical art historians, technicians and engineers to pool and coordinate their methods and areas of expertise. In doing so they will generate substantial new knowledge and understanding of Hepworth's work. At the same time, they establish the basis for, and set the agenda for, further more targeted transdisciplinary research into Hepworth's material practice. The network will have substantial impacts on the museum and gallery sector, on conservation practice and on the wide audience for Hepworth's work. It will feed directly into a forthcoming special retrospective - the largest Hepworth exhibition ever staged - and enable intervention into the permanent displays of Hepworth's work at THW. In doing so it will contribute to the cultural life and the wider regeneration of Wakefield. No less significantly, it will also provide a model and foundation for collaborative research into material practice in the arts, essential if we are to gain a genuine grasp of the material aspects of artistic production. Art historians, while often enthusiastic participants in the 'material turn' in their discipline, have ironically tended to approach the material in highly theoretical ways. As a result, they have tended to prioritise phenomenological and socioeconomic approaches to materiality, while neglecting the immediate physical realities of artistic production. Practicing artists, technical art historians, engineers and art technicians are in direct contact with materials and processes. However, they are often remote from the questions that animate their art historical colleagues. Bringing together scholars and practitioners in the way envisaged by this project will bring these perspectives into dialogue, and show how detailed exploration of material evidence can transform our understanding of artistic production.

世纪英国主要雕塑家芭芭拉赫普沃思是如何将她的艺术思想转化为现实的？她如何操纵工具和过程来塑造抗性物质，而它们又如何反过来塑造艺术家？她是如何与技术人员和工匠合作，将她的模型变成成品雕塑的？这些都是关于赫普沃思或任何雕塑家的创作实践的基本问题;然而，它们仍然很少被探索。这个项目将寻求开始回答他们，汇集了不同的专业知识来源，以承担赫普沃思韦克菲尔德（THW），英格兰北部最重要的现代和当代艺术博物馆之一的独特收藏。虽然赫普沃思的工作主要由成品组成，THW的收藏的核心是赫普沃思家庭礼物，是一个独特的档案准备，技术和个人材料。这包括石膏原型，青铜铸件和雕刻，印刷品和图纸，工具和材料，食谱和笔记/期刊。赫普沃思个人图书馆的一个重要部分的贷款进一步丰富了。目前，由于缺乏对赫普沃思材料、技术和工艺的协调研究，人们对这一非凡的收藏品仍知之甚少。有很多知识存在，但它目前是孤立的策展人，保护者，执业艺术家，技术艺术史学家和学术艺术史学家。其结果是，THW发现理解和展示其丰富的资产是一项挑战。这个研究网络将开始，以解决这种情况，汇集了不同的专业知识，技能和专业领域需要了解赫普沃思的物质过程和他们的关系，她更广泛的文化目标和利益。它将使学术艺术历史学家，策展人在THW和其他地方，执业艺术家，保护者，技术艺术历史学家，技术人员和工程师汇集和协调他们的方法和专业领域。在这样做的过程中，他们将产生大量的新知识和理解赫普沃思的工作。与此同时，他们建立了基础，并设置议程，进一步更有针对性的跨学科研究到赫普沃思的物质实践。该网络将对博物馆和画廊部门、保护实践以及赫普沃思作品的广大观众产生重大影响。它将直接进入即将举行的特别回顾展-有史以来最大的赫普沃思展览-并使干预到赫普沃思的工作在THW的永久显示。这样做将有助于文化生活和更广泛的再生韦克菲尔德。同样重要的是，它还将为艺术中的物质实践合作研究提供一个模型和基础，如果我们要真正掌握艺术生产的物质方面，这是必不可少的。艺术史学家，虽然经常热情参与“材料转向”在他们的学科，具有讽刺意味的是，往往接近材料在高度理论化的方式。因此，他们倾向于优先考虑现象学和社会经济学的方法来处理物质性，而忽视了艺术生产的直接物理现实。实践艺术家，技术艺术历史学家，工程师和艺术技术人员直接接触材料和工艺。然而，他们往往远离那些激励他们的艺术史同行的问题。以该项目所设想的方式将学者和实践者聚集在一起，将这些观点带入对话，并展示对物证的详细探索如何改变我们对艺术生产的理解。

项目成果

Hepworth and the Tache: Drawings and Paintings 1957-8

赫普沃斯和塔奇：绘画 1957-8

• 发表时间: 2021
• 作者: Stephen Feeke

Colouring Sculpture: Material Evidence from Barbara Hepworth's Working Spaces in St Ives

彩色雕塑：来自芭芭拉·赫普沃斯圣艾夫斯工作空间的物质证据

• 发表时间: 2022
• 作者: Melanie Rolfe

Form and Colour: Friendship, Patronage and Collaboration Between Barbara Hepworth, Leslie Martin and Sadie Speight

形式与色彩：芭芭拉·赫普沃斯、莱斯利·马丁和萨迪·斯佩特之间的友谊、赞助和合作

• 发表时间: 2021
• 作者: Alice Strang

Terrain of the Queer Body

酷儿身体的地形

• 发表时间: 2021
• 作者: Ro Robertson