I have had a buddy from Gateshead stopping at my Wakefield apartment for the past two days.
A cohort of mine since working together at the National Coal Board head office in the early 1980’s, he (also named Gary) taught me a huge amount about inappropriate humour; including the limerick starting ‘The was a young lass from Regina….’
Four years my senior, the pal who originates from South Shields has endured a challenging couple of years health wise. Circumstances meaning he’s currently in the midst of a pretty stringent treatment regime.
Despite this, though, he’s been in reasonably good spirits throughout his West Yorkshire tarry. A visit where, amongst our adventures, we circumnavigated Pugneys Country Park’s periphery, along with wandering Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s vast grounds.
The latter excursion, in the absence of any guide, seeing us embark on a ‘game’ of attempting to understand the artists meaning behind each sculpture encountered.
One such pretentious episode playing out as we passed the above edifice. Standing aside this feature, Gary and me each endeavoured to understand what the creator was attempting to relay to an audience with this piece of art.
My buddy opined he felt the jail like vertical slat design bore the signs of constraint and the deprivation of liberty. Perhaps, showing the artists desire to indicate the starkness of life and hindrances we all face as we shuffle along this mortal coil.
Although utterly subjective and no more or less valid, your truly’s interpretation was the antithesis of my good friends notion. GJ Strachan suggesting that perhaps this construction was a signification of building new life beginnings in the shape of this sturdy foundation and beam.
Am I or the other Gary closer to the meaning’s truth?…. Who knows and, to be quite frank, who the f**k cares. After all, bereft of the real meaning, our notions are purely subjective; our exchanges deliberately pretentious tongue in cheek banter to add to the ventures whimsy levels.
As I am unable to see reference to the artistic construction within the metaphorical corridors and chambers of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s website, potentially this structure might not even be one of the attractions thought-provoking exhibits.
It maybe an unfinished storage building of some sort. Which, if so, I would guess makes my interpretation right by default… Sorry, Gary!
Or perhaps it could be a sort of gaol, making my name sharing pal correct… That being said, though, with its spacious gaps between plinths, I’m unsure which animal it would be whose liberty was being denied by this structure… It’d have to be a fairly big beast… An elephant, maybe?!
That being said, who would incarcerate an elephant in such a confined space… These trunked animals are lovely creatures who ordinarily only turn aggressive if spooked or threatened.
Although many people wandering this globe are awful, I can’t envisage any circumstances in which they’d be restrained so barbarously.
Incidentally, I’m of course using artistic licence at this juncture. Clearly, the building won’t be a restrictive elephant pen. I don’t know Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s trustees, however I’m pretty sure they will be lovely people who would baulk at any suggestion of turning any part of their land into a zoo… Especially one so restrictively heartless.
No, I am sure (and so was my Gateshead buddy) the edifice is a big linear sculpture borne from the mind of an artistic creative prior to display on these West Yorkshire plains.
And even if we turn out to be wrong, is it not the case that it’s good this wooden construction spurred such debate into its artistic merits and meaning?!… Is that not what the artist and YSP trustees feed off and seek from their exhibits?
Irrespective of its raison d’être (whatever the heck that is), the structures very existence has led to a 500+ blog surrounding it’s reason for that existence. If I were the pieces designer, I would be chuffed something I’d created had sparked such debate.
I need to conclude the narrative at this point as my buddy wants to teach me another limerick… “What’s that you’re saying, Gary?!”… “There was a French girl whose a diva; Who could pick up matchsticks with her….”
That was disgusting!… Last time I invite him down here in an attempt to raise his culture levels!! 😉
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