Inside with Jaume Plensa

Way back in the middle of last month, I met up with Bev in Yorkshire for a small cultural top up at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. As is usual, we walked too far and got sore feet, but it started of gently with a wonderful exhibition from Jaume Plensa. All quite close together and both inside and out. This blog is my three favorite parts of the inside exhibition - I'm sure the outside stuff will get mentioned later.

This part of the gallery is set out as a number of rooms leading off this corridor. Mr Plensa had made a long curtain of steel letters to run along the corridor. He calls it 29 Palms as the letters spell out 29 passages from his favorite poets. Bev spotted that it began and ended with Macbeth.

Eleven giant alabaster heads fill one of the rooms - slightly elongated and standing about 6 feet tall. The room was very quiet when we arrived here, peaceful and mesmerising things they were. Though there is nobody in my pictures of them, we were allowed to walk amongst them.

Out in the corridor again. There was a sign at the beginning ot the exhibition which said, "do not touch, only caress."

The last room was "Jerusalem", a number of gongs hanging  from the ceiling and each engraved with part of the song of Soloman (thank you - you don't think I spotted that one myself). We were encouraged to strike the gongs gently, listen to the sound grow and fade. Each gong had a distinctly different character.

Back in the corridor at the other end of the curtain just in time to see a herd of school children arriving from the opposite direction. They were delighted by the gongs and were paying little attention to the gentle part of proceedings. Within minutes the attendant in that room had emerged and was calling for help from his collegue - poor lad, he was absolutely out of his depth. I think we probably saw this part just at the right time.