There are a number of outdoor sculptural installations that we have commissioned across our rural site by artists including Folke Köbberling and Martin Kaltwasser (Berlin), Bik Van Der Pol (Rotterdam), Bedwyr Williams (Caernarfon), Laure Prouvost & Francesco Pedraglio (London) and David Blandy (London).

You are welcome to view the outdoor sculptures around Wysing's site when the gallery is open (daily 12noon-5pm when there is an exhibition on) or during office hours (Monday-Friday 10am-5pm)

Download a PDF map of the Wysing site

Folke Köbberling and Martin Kaltwasser Amphis 2008

We invited Berlin based artists Folke Köbberling and Martin Kaltwasser to create an ‘amphitheatre’, working with a team of volunteers and using only discarded, found and recycled materials.

Köbberling and Kaltwasser have a track record in working this way and have completed a number of similar projects in Germany and other European countries. This was their first project in the UK.

Bik Van Der Pol Untitled (Gold) 2009

The work of Bik Van der Pol explores the potential of art to improve situations, add what is missing or highlight what’s hidden. The result of their research into the notion of generosity, for the exhbition Generosity is the ne political, is Untitled (Gold), a work which looks at the perceived opposite of generosity – greed. The motto depicted in the work is an extract from a poem by the British poet Thomas Hood, which discusses how gold is a material that continuously tests both our generosity and our greed. Untitled (Gold) is permanently on display in Wysing's grounds.

Bedwyr Williams Beehive Skyscraper 2010

Bedwyr Williams built a spectacular sculpture, Beehive Skyscraper, in the woods at Wysing. At 26ft tall, the sculpture could be one of the tallest beehives in the world. The hive is based on a design by William Broughton Carr (WBC), which has sadly fallen out of fashion with beekeepers because of the complexity of its construction and use.

Bedwyr built the sculpture in the company of local beekeepers, who were on hand to talk to at a special event, which included honey products for sale and mead was served, to celebrate the end of Wysing's Year of the Improbable. Click here for more information about the event and about Bedwyr Williams. 

Laure Prouvost and Francesco Pedraglio, The Lot, 2011

During their residency as part of The Institute of Beyond's Department of Wrong Answers, Laure Prouvost & Francesco Pedraglio created a new video, billboard, signs and an installation within Amphis (renamed Jody’s bar). The works provided mesmerizing juxtapositions of images, text and sound with a clear focus on broken up narrative. All of the interconnected pieces arose from the artists’ short story The Lot. The short story humorously depicts a fictitious department’s desperate work environment; an obscure camp dedicated to search for unrecognizable objects and dig abstract ideas from muddy meadows.  Their billboards remain on view around the site. In the background of this photo is Andy Holden's Boulder Stage, 2010, which was created during his residency in 2010 and which has since been removed.

David Blandy Crossroads 2009

David Blandy performed the soundtrack to his film Crossroads live at our music festival Be Glad For The Song Has No End in September 2010.

The film began as an investigation into the mythology surrounding the legendary Robert Johnson, a bluesman with three gravestones, 29 recorded songs and only two known photographs, who reputedly sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads.  Filmed in the heat of the Mississippi Delta, Crossroads was in part a portrait of a landscape still deeply, though not officially, segregated.

This replica plantation shack was originally constructed as a means to project the film, with the sound reverberating from within. It was not possible to see inside the shack, the curtains were closed with a light shining behind them. Viewers could sit on the back porch, on a rocking chair, to watch the film.

At Wysing the original shack from Blandy’s touring exhibition, also called Crossroads, has been installed permanently at Wysing and will be used for future artists’ residencies and events. 

Crossroads was an Arts Council England National Touring Commission initiated by Spike Island and supported by 176, Zabludowicz Collection.