Sotheby's Exhibition of Sculpture

Sotheby's Exhibition of Sculpture at Chatsworth, Now in Its Fifth Year

LONDON -- Following the continued success and popularity of Beyond Limits - Sotheby's annual selling exhibition of monumental sculpture hosted within the magnificent gardens of the ancestral home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire at Chatsworth - the exhibition returns to Derbyshire this autumn and enters its fifth consecutive year. The 2010 selling exhibition, which promises to be another great installation, will showcase the works of an international lineup of artists: Manolo Valds, Lynn Chadwick, Yue Minjun, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Subodh Gupta, Ju Ming, Eduardo Chillida, Germaine Richer and Barry Flanagan, among others. The show, which opens to the public on Monday, September 13 and runs until Sunday, October 31, 2010, will present 24 extraordinary works, which are all for sale. The quality and range of the exhibition reflects the current strong demand from international collectors to acquire modern and contemporary monumental sculpture in a market that has continued to grow in recent years.

Talking about the 2010 show, Alexander Platon of Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art department, states: "We're thrilled to be back at Chatsworth with our fifth installment of Beyond Limits. This year's exhibition is as diverse and exciting as ever, with sculpture by internationally acclaimed artists from as far afield as China, the USA, India and Taiwan, in addition to first class examples by European and British sculptors too."

Manolo Valds' (b. 1942) Butterflies takes centre stage in this year's show, with a prime positioning on the Duke's private lawn in front of Chatsworth House. Butterflies is a unique work that was executed earlier this year in aluminum, a material which both enables an extraordinary play of light over its surfaces while at the same time providing the tensile strength and weight-saving attributes needed to support its monumental headdress measuring over nine meters wide. Commenting on his involvement in the 2010 Beyond Limits exhibition at Chatsworth, Manolo Valds, the New York-based Spanish sculptor, states: "Seeing my work in such a spectacular setting is very rewarding. It is seldom that one may find such an ideal place as Chatsworth to show this type of art."

Yue Minjun (b. 1962) has been one of the most prominent rising stars of the Chinese Contemporary Art scene in recent years and Sotheby's presents an eye-catching work by him this year: a set of 25 bronze figures entitled Contemporary Terracotta Warriors. They represent Minjun's visual response to the 8,000-strong Qin dynasty terracotta warriors (221-206 BC), one of China's world famous cultural attractions. The figures are placed within the stepped cascade at Chatsworth, imbuing them with the order of a military display.

Further Asian highlights in the exhibition are two stainless steel sculptures entitled Swimming by Taiwan's Ju Ming (b. 1938). Ju Ming made his debut at Chatsworth in 2008 and this year, his bathers are juxtaposed within the estate's rock pool. An imposing Taichi Series arch rounds off his offerings. The Indian Contemporary artist Subodh Gupta (b. 1964) will also once again be represented; this year by an important sculpture entitled Hungry God, a piece that features his characteristic aluminum pots and pans and which is installed in Paxton's glasshouse known as the Conservative Wall.

The celebrated French sculptor Germaine Richier (1902-1959) will feature with a rare large-scale bronze of Le Diabolo, depicting one of her highly distinctive figures which incorporate both human and animal attributes. The figure appears to be playing the innocent juggling game of Diabolo, but the strings are conjured with more sinister undertones.

Lynn Chadwick, Barry Flanagan, Marc Quinn, Damien Hirst and Richard Hudson are among the British artists whose works will be part of this autumn's show and a group of four works by Chadwick (1914-2003) is particularly notable. The group, three of which come directly from the artist's estate, are led by Ace of Diamonds III, a polished steel kinetic sculpture installed in Chatsworth's Jack Pond, where it can pivot on two axes in the wind while reflecting light off the water. Further works by Chadwick are Stairs, the largest of a series of sculptures he produced late in his career based around the theme of two female figures ascending/descending a staircase, High Wind IV and Three Elektras.

With anatomy both beautiful and repellant, Damien Hirst's (b. 1965) iconic lifesize sculpture of St Bartholomew, the saint who was skinned alive, is situated in the Sensory Garden at Chatsworth. Another example of this work was exhibited outside the Wallace Collection for the artist's No Love Lost, Blue Paintings exhibition last year, and at Chatsworth the senses are never more overtly challenged and exposed than in the tranquility of this setting.

This dramatic piece by Marc Quinn, (b. 1964) The Engine of Evolution, captures the idea of the continuation of the species and the evolution of mankind. The naturalistic flowers here become anatomical, reduced to their reproductive elements which are so pronounced when visualized on this scale, stirring thoughts about the innocence of beauty.

Finally, among the new talents on show this year will be David Breuer-Weil (b. 1965). His monumental head entitled Visitor, partly submerged in the Strid Pool, is the visual embodiment of thought - creating reverberations in the water surrounding it. Also making his Chatsworth debut is Belgian sculptor Johan Creten (b. 1963) with his enigmatically titled sculpture Why does Strange Fruit taste so Sweet? Creten was a nominee for the Flemish Culture Prize last year.