SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE, NEWS AND ART IN THE OPEN: THE JOYS OF JUPITER ARTLAND SCULPTURE PARK

 

Sydney Symphony Orchestra Beethoven’s Third Symphony 20 - 23 Mar Opens tonight Experience the power of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s thrilling Third Symphony and Ravel’s exquisite Piano Concerto in G with Víkingur Ólafsson, one of the world’s greatest pianists, in his final Sydney performances.

FROM EDINBURGH

The innovative sculpture park near Edinburgh is reopening for summer, marking its second decade with new commissions and an art and music festival

You imagine what you desire,” reads an arty light sculpture in the grounds of Jupiter Artland. It’s my first visit to this privately owned sculpture park five miles west of Edinburgh and I’m feeling rather overwhelmed – Jupiter is a destination that challenges easy definitions. It has more than 100 acres of fields and woods, with views across rolling countryside to the Pentland hills, and dozens of permanent installations. Several of these artworks incorporate small buildings, islands or terraced slopes.

On a hilltop stands a huge, nebulous, humanoid steel sculpture by Anthony Gormley. From it I can see as far as the Forth Bridges. There’s also a terrifying caged hole by Anish Kapoor called Suck, but my favourite work is Stone Coppice by Andy Goldsworthy, where quarried boulders nest in the branches of growing coppiced trees. Wandering through another part of the estate, I see Goldsworthy has fixed harvested branches from the coppicing upright inside a stone-walled shed to create a linked work, Coppice Room.

There are also temporary exhibitions, galleries, a new cafe, workshops, festivals, even a swimming pool. The illuminated quote, borrowed from George Bernard Shaw, is the characteristic work of Glasgow-based artist Nathan Coley. It seems to capture something of the ambition and creativity on display here. Shortlisted for the Artfund’s 2016 Museum of the Year award, alongside the V&A and others, Jupiter is now a big-league player.

The owners and creators of Jupiter Artland live in Bonnington House, a Jacobean manor at the centre of the site. Former sculptor Nicky Wilson is the artistic power behind the project. Her husband Robert chairs several charities and runs natural medicine company Nelsons (which makes Rescue Remedy, among other things). The couple bought Bonnington House in 1999 and have opened the grounds to the public every summer since 2009. US landscape architect Charles Jencks was one of the first artists they commissioned and his giant Cells of Life, reflected in a series of lakes, took eight years to build.

Jupiter Artland reopens and is starting its second decade with a new five-star rating from VisitScotland. Talk-of-the-town restaurant Fhior, on Edinburgh’s Broughton Street, is providing “hyper-seasonal” cakes and sandwiches for Jupiter’s restaurant, Café Party, where the walls were painted with vivid murals in 2017 by Swiss artist Nicolas Party.

Jupiter is one of those places where “enchanted” doesn’t feel like a cliche. My bus from Edinburgh stops outside an animal feed depot on the B7015 (25 minutes from the city centre on the number X23 or X27) and I walk through gates studded with knots of silver nails into a world of flowering woods and twisted rhododendrons. Birds are singing in the trees and a baby rabbit hurries into a nearby hedge. Further in, I can make out works such as Phyllida Barlow’s industrial-looking Quarry (2018), framing a changeable sky and leafy beech branches. Nearby, Anya Gallacio has sunk a crystal-walled cell into the forest floor.

Female artists are well-represented at Jupiter. From a lawn near the studios, Helen Chadwick’s Piss Flowers sprout like strange white mushrooms. I enjoy a sneak preview of this year’s major new installation: Gateway is an organically shaped swimming pool designed by Joana Vasconcelos, with hand-painted Portuguese tiles, a topiary garden and a mirror-faced pool room. Visitors can book a swim there in August…………

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/may/17/open-air-art-jupiter-artland-sculpture-park-edinburgh-festival