Bharti Kher: Alchemies

Open until 27 April 2025
YSP Underground Gallery and Outdoors

This summer Wakefield’s Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) presents a major solo exhibition of artwork by Bharti Kher, in her most extensive UK presentation to date.

YSP brings one of the world’s leading contemporary artists to the region with her show Alchemies headlining the Park’s 2024 artistic programme, focusing on and celebrating themes of diversity, discovery and personal identity.

Kher, who was born in the UK and now lives and works between London and India, centres the female body and experience through sculpture. Addressing timely political issues around identity and gender, she reframes the perspective and position of women from her own experiences. The powerful group of sculptures in the exhibition spans 2000-24 and includes four significant outdoor bronze sculptures.

Curated across the light-filled spaces of YSP’s largest gallery and surrounding garden, the exhibition celebrates Kher’s extraordinary sculptures, representing different approaches and periods of her career. Throughout her work Kher pushes at defined readings of objects and identities to see what other meanings might be possible – such as the binary of man/woman, or other traditionally fixed and hierarchical representations. The artist also considers the roles of women in society and culture, and assigns them a place, questioning the different lenses through which identity is viewed.

Said Kher: “When I make the work in the studio, so many forces are at play: the material and its narrative and needs, my hands and their energies, the space and its dynamic as a holder of potential. The bodies and remnants of voices that leave their traces and essence in the body casts. Positives and negatives fly around me. All of it helps me see better, to sense the temperature, to hear what is physical, but to make the work sing I have let go of all of it. And that’s how the alchemies of the studio come into being.”

Clare Lilley, YSP director, says: “Bharti Kher: Alchemies headlines a year of programming that is driven by international female artists. This ambitious exhibition brings an important artist to new UK audiences and we look forward to seeing visitors enjoy and experience such exceptional work. In YSP’s unique setting we are able to show both the intimate in the galleries and the monumental in the open air, creating stimulating conversations between artworks and people and igniting ideas and the imagination.”

This summer YSP visitors of all ages can enjoy a variety of creative and wellbeing events related to Bharti Kher: Alchemies. Younger audiences can ignite their imagination in the gallery space each month with the free
Artful Saturdays: a creative family gathering (27 July – 26 Oct 2024). Or seek peace & well-being with a series of Yoga and Sound Bath Relaxation events within the surroundings of Kher’s exhibition.

With so many other activities taking place at YSP, along with over 90 sculptures set within 500 acres of historic landscape, visitors can benefit from the Spring/Summer Pass. Visit as many times as you like during opening hours, valid until 29 September 2024, or unlock year-round benefits with a
YSP Friends Membership. YSP is dog friendly and has cafes, a restaurant and gifts shops to enjoy.