IT IS a sculpture which drew huge crowds at its temporary residence at the Great Yorkshire Show.
Now Igor Mitoraj’s imposing Héros de Lumière is back at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
The nine ton piece of artwork and huge favourite with visitors can now be seen on the Formal Terrace at the picturesque Park.
Héros de Lumière is carved from a block of carrara marble as favoured by Renaissance sculptors such as Michelangelo, who believed he was carving to release figures trapped in the stone.
Polish-born Mitoraj’s sculpture, translated Hero of Light, was created in 1986.
Since 1983, Mitoraj has lived and worked between his homes and studios in Paris and Pietrasanta while showing his work around the world.
In 2006 he created the new bronze doors and a statue of St John the Baptist for the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome.
But his work is equally at home at the West Bretton sculpture park alongside the works of Martin Creed and Eva Rothschild.
Alumni of the Kraków School of Art and at the Kraków Academy of Art, his work, after its period in the limelight, is back on view at its previous home giving visitors another chance to see this iconic work of art.
It proved a huge draw for the 150,000 visitors to the Great Yorkshire Show in July, where the show’s guests of honour this year were Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall toured.
Other works of art in the picturesque sculpture park setting include the first major UK exhibition by Jaume Plensa, a renowned Spanish artist who encourages tactile and sensory exploration.
Plensa’s vibrant exhibition includes a 50-metre curtain of poetry made of suspended steel letters, large illuminated sculptures in the landscape, and engraved gongs that visitors can strike to fill the gallery with sound.
Also featuring is a new installation by Emily Speed entitled Make Shift.
It’s the Liverpool artist’s first solo exhibition and features sculpture, installation, drawing and photography.
Emily’s work explores the temporary and the transient through reference to architecture and the body.
She examines buildings, both literally and metaphorically, as physical shelters and as containers for memory, bound with the history of their occupiers.
See their work for yourself at the YSP, West Bretton, open daily 10am-6pm. Admission is free.
