This is chosen mainly for its location – the park is a short hop off the M1 just before Leeds, so can easily be incorporated into whatever northern jaunt you may be undertaking. It’s a large, Arcadian swedge of land, where you can graze on houmous flatbreads and gaze upon fluid, momentous blocks of metal sculpted by the likes of Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Anthony Caro. There is also a wonderful section devoted entirely to the severe yet lovely works of Ronald Rae, who used only hand tools to create his fantastic, contorted animals, sculpted out of prehistoric lumps of granite.
However, the main draw for me is the newly-opened deer shelter, and the accompanying exhibition at the Underground Gallery, both by James Turrell. For those unaware of the man, Turrell is a bearded wonder who deals solely with our perceptions of light, and more specifically, the sky. The deer shelter has been transformed into one of his “skyspaces” – all it encompasses is a sharp rectangle in the roof that lies open to the heavens, and below, some basic benched seating around the sides of the room. And that’s it. The idea is for you to treat the sky as the canvas, the painting, a conduit to reflection and wonder. And it’s beautiful.
If you can make it to the YSP before September 2006, you will be able to visit the exhibition indoors, featuring one of his most famous works, ‘Ganzfeld’. I do not wish to give too much away, but I first experienced this installation in Edinburgh about eight years ago, and it was the most inspiring work of art I had ever seen. It has lost none of its magic. To have your senses bowled over, rearranged and stung into exhilarating, near transcendent action all in the space of five minutes, go have a look. A space of almost utter, incohering darkness is transformed by your own eyes into a colour-filled meditative space, in which you move about enthralled across the same space you had stumbled, concerned and confused, just a few moments earlier.
Two other installations accompany this: a neon-blue suggestion of infinity that will also confuse the hell out of you, and a room turned into a luminescent Rothko, allowing you to sit back and wonder at Turrell’s vision, technique and eye for beauty.
It’s ace.