Hear the phrase 'contemporary sculpture' and one might conjure up a conceptual art installation in a fashionable white-walled urban gallery. However, over the past twelve years, while controversy has continued to rage around contemporary art and its meanings, a quiet renaissance has been taking place in British sculpture, not in a converted metropolitan warehouse as one might expect, but in an ancient forest deep in the Sussex countryside.
In just twelve years, the Cass Sculpture Foundation has become the most successful habitat for twenty-first century sculpture, offering mainly British artists boundless opportunities for creative expression and experimentation. Founded as a charitable foundation by Wilfred and Jeannette Cass in 1992, the Foundation has built an enviable international reputation for nurturing British creativity and promoting it on the world stage. As restless and inventive as ever, Wilfred Cass is now expanding the Foundation's activities into new realms.
Already passionate art collectors and advocates of contemporary sculpture, Wilfred and Jeannette Cass bought the elegant, modernist Hat Hill House on the Goodwood estate in 1989. Inspired by the wooded surroundings, and determined to share it with others, the Casses set about creating an ecologically friendly open-air sculpture gallery. To establish a home for contemporary sculpture in an ancient woodland was a daring but visionary move, since Britain never had a tradition of sculpture parks of the kind common to America or Japan. A little research was called for.
After an extended odyssey travelling the world looking at sculpture parks, trails and outdoor galleries, the Casses returned to England and began sensitively converting the 20 acres of overgrown woodland at Goodwood so that it might receive the products of their new initiative.
Throughout their creative journey, the Casses have received spirited support from the Duke of Richmond and Gordon and his son the Earl of March and Kinrara, who is a trustee of the Foundation. The open-air sculpture gallery and the broader Goodwood estate continue to enjoy a relationship of mutual respect and creative dialogue, symbolized by the annual loan of a sculpture to the Richmond Enclosure at Goodwood Racecourse and other activities.
From the outset, the Foundation was grounded in a sensitive awareness of the specific problems and challenges confronting sculptors. Many artists conceive of ambitious projects, which, because of their scale and associated costs, are never realised. This is where the Foundation steps in, providing the necessary investment to commission the artist and seeing through to completion the often complex and expensive casting and fabrication of large-scale pieces.
The finished work, jointly owned by the artist and the Foundation, is then carefully positioned within the forest to achieve maximum aesthetic autonomy with minimal visual interference from other pieces. Most sculptures are enriched by the natural surroundings and in turn endow the landscape with a curious energy and vitality. Museum curators, private collectors, architects, students and school children come from all corners of the world to view and buy work at the Foundation. When a piece is sold, the initial outlay is reclaimed and returned to forging new works commissioned by the charity.
Setting up the enterprise required the Casses to provide significant up-front and long-term investment, but above all it required an unshakeable belief in the worth of British sculptural endeavour and a wholehearted commitment to its long-term future. The early decision by Britain's most respected sculptor Sir Anthony Caro to install a major work, The Tower of Discovery, was instrumental in demonstrating that the wooded site at Goodwood was an appropriate environment in which to display large-scale sculpture. Sir Anthony's gesture also served to encourage other artists to become involved. To date, the Foundation has collaborated with more than 100 leading British sculptors, and the list is still expanding.
Artist Sally Matthews is a sculptor of animals who works mainly on public commissions. Because she uses almost exclusively organic materials, most of her work is destined to deteriorate naturally over time. "I'm quite a quiet artist who doesn't do something large on a whim," says Matthews. "The Casses offered me that rare opportunity to produce something straight out of my head, something that would endure." Her bronze sculptures of prowling wolves for sculpture at Goodwood are now in America and she is in discussion with the Foundation about another project.
The Foundation commissions up to 15 new pieces from artists annually, some of which may not materialise for a further four or five years. Meanwhile, several of the sixty sculptures on display at Goodwood are sold each year, ensuring there is always space for new work to enter the woodland. On this basis alone, if the Foundation restricted its compass to commissioning and showing sculpture, the future of it would be secure, but its ambitions are limitless.
In a relatively short period of time, the Foundation has evolved into a multi-faceted educational and archival resource for the promotion of 21st century sculpture. Over the years the project has accumulated one of the most authoritative archives of primarily British sculpture and contemporary design, comprising artists' drawings, maquettes (small-scale models for larger works), artists' books, film, video and CD Roms. The maquette project enjoyed spectacular success when shown at the Venice Biennale and continues to be a focal point of the Foundation's elegant London gallery and information centre at 3-4 Percy Street, which provides a 'keyhole' introduction to the broader Goodwood operation.
Meanwhile, the educational/archival strand of the enterprise is also poised to expand as the Foundation prepares to launch an educational and research Centre in the grounds of the sculpture estate at Goodwood. Housed in a large new open-plan building in the grounds, the Foundation's Centre will provide a stimulating and inspiring location from which to communicate the Foundation's extensive archive, expertise, commissioning knowledge, and materials research resources to a wider international audience of curators, collectors, architects, property developers and art consultants.
Once again this project will not be constrained by mere geography. A glimpse at the Foundation's sophisticated website testifies to the importance Wilfred Cass attaches to technological innovation. '- The Centre' will use open source publishing and other innovative communication technologies to promote the Foundation's objectives to the global community as a centre of excellence for 21st century sculpture.
The Casses have big horizons, even if their roots remain firmly embedded in the forest floor.
