A NUMBER of extra visitors are expected at Huddersfield Art Gallery in the next week or two, mainly to see sculptor Carl Andre’s infamous pile of bricks.

It was curiously titled Equivalent VIII, which created such controversy when originally acquired by the Tate Gallery back in 1972.

It should certainly get visitors talking on the theme of What is art? and forms part of an exhibition, Fields of Contention, which aims to explore construction and controversy.

Sheffield-based artist Sarah Staton was invited to respond to the bricks and two-dimensional works in the show, and near the bricks is her carefully assembled Pillage and Presentation: Rocks, minerals and metals.

These include gold, marble, minerals, crystals and rocks.

In the second gallery, responding to modernist paintings, she has completed two intricately-crafted assemblages – a large, frame-like piece in steel mesh and a smaller one in concrete, gold and mahogany.

Both have the same title, The Rain Will Be Heaviest Across The Mountains And Hills, and it is suggested the pieces represent hills and mountains.

Gallery visitors should not leave before seeing the exhibition by sculptor Norman Dilworth in the big gallery.

Here, the size and shapes of the pieces are sufficient to make a big impression, not least the huge Spirit Three, a wall-mounted, scythe-like piece in corten steel which greets you as you enter the gallery.

Born in Orwell, Wigan in 1931, the sculptor attended Wigan School of Art and the Slade School, and received a scholarship to study in Parish in 1956, where he became interested in Mondrian’s geometric abstraction.

The theme of geometry and abstraction is evident in the Huddersfield exhibition which includes pieces like Puff Ball (1972) in stainless steel. This striking piece consists of 30 aluminium bars tangled together.

Dilworth here says the sculpture “reminds one of an ideal to forge constructions that eventually would transcend their making by human engineering hands.”

A more recent piece, wall-mounted piece, Nine Cut Corners (2008) is in corten steel and consists of nine squares, each with corners cut off, making four kite shapes in the centre.

Dilworth has used industrial materials and techniques for this work, and the natural rusting of the metal allows for an interesting variation in colour shades.

Four Times Three (1977/8) is in entirely different form and material. It uses wood, stained black, but again uses geometrical rules and mathematical formulas to create, this time, an angled sculptural form.

My favourite piece in the show would probably be the shapely Three Cubes (2006) which is in gleaming painted steel. The cubes stand one on top of the other.

As well as the sculpture, there are drawings, with works dating back to the 1950s like Standing Nude, Life Room, Hampstead 2, and Le Carrefour, Paris, showing Dilworth’s skills as a draughtsman.

So there’s plenty of sculpture to see at the gallery at present, including Henry Monroe’s Fallen Warrior, now restored to a prominent position.

Fields of Contention runs till November 20 and Norman Dilworth till November 27.

o AT the AC Gallery, Byram Street, there’s another exhibition of works by the late and ever-popular Peter Brook, of Brighouse, including more than 20 original paintings (until October 22).

And a new show opens tomorrow at the Harrison Lord Gallery, Brighouse – Hills, Dales and Coast by Mark Sofilas.