{"id":18908,"date":"2023-03-16T07:32:15","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T07:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visit-kendal.co.uk\/?p=18908"},"modified":"2023-03-16T07:32:15","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T07:32:15","slug":"abbot-hall-set-to-re-open-this-may-with-exhibition-asking-what-is-it-that-will-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visit-kendal.co.uk\/abbot-hall-set-to-re-open-this-may-with-exhibition-asking-what-is-it-that-will-last\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbot Hall set to re-open this May with exhibition asking What is it That Will Last?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A decade of work by British artist Julie Brook goes on display in a major exhibition for Abbot Hall art gallery in Kendal, Cumbria.<\/p>\n

What is it That Will Last? <\/em><\/strong>(20 May to 30 Dec 2023) is an exhibition of film, drawing and photography spanning recent works made in the Outer Hebrides, in the Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan and Cumbria.<\/p>\n

Scotland-based Julie Brook (b. 1961) works primarily in remote landscapes, creating large scale sculptural interventions that express the invisible forces – gravity, time and tide \u2013 that govern our lives.<\/p>\n

What is it That Will Last?<\/em><\/strong> is the first exhibition in the newly refurbished Abbot Hall. This reopening show will span all the gallery spaces. Extending the exhibition beyond the walls of the gallery, there is an outdoor sculpture at Holker Hall\u2019s Deer Park.<\/p>\n

Abbot Hall is one of Britain\u2019s preeminent small art galleries, set in a beautifully restored Grade I-listed Georgian building on the banks of the River Kent in Kendal, Cumbria. It was temporarily closed in February 2020 to enable essential renovation work. What is it That Will Last? <\/em>signals a fresh direction for Abbot Hall as the gallery aligns its programme to explore the themes of landscape and identity, through its collection and new collaborations.<\/p>\n

Several works from Abbot Hall\u2019s collection will also be on display throughout the exhibition. Selected with Julie Brook, works including those by Frank Auerbach, Barbara Hepworth, John Piper, John Ruskin, JMW Turner and Elizabeth Frink, will further explore the timeless relationship between artist and landscape.<\/p>\n

What is it That Will Last?<\/em><\/strong> spans the last decade of Julie Brook\u2019s work as well as ongoing projects.<\/p>\n

Brook\u2019s work frequently emerges from her inhabitation of a landscape and its materials. Exposed to the full range of natural forces, these works are often transient in character, or eventually eroded by the elements.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime, tide, gravity, rock, water and fire are her materials: the oldest of all matters of making. Sculpting with them, she helps us see things that are usually invisible: the rise of tide, the gust of wind, the fall of dark. Such everyday \u2018occurrence are phenomenal in their own right\u2019, Brook notes, but because they happen every day we forget to look and listen.\u201d Author Robert Macfarlane<\/strong><\/p>\n

Her seminal work, Firestacks,<\/em> will be presented as an immersive series of films that enable us to experience the might and mystery of the tidal forces that surround the islands of Scotland. These dazzling beacons of fire, crafted by the artist through feats of physical endurance, are eventually consumed by the sea, inviting us to engage with our own precarious co-existence with the natural world.<\/p>\n

Other works include:<\/p>\n