Lucy + Jorge Orta 2013. Yorkshire Sculpture Park

This important solo exhibition in YSP’s Longside Gallery brings together 78 artworks, which revolve around the theme of water, central to Orta’s practice. Alongside archival works the artists launch two major new commissions: Raft of the Medusa and Spirits.

Raft of the Medusa, a centerpiece of the exhibition, is inspired by Théodore Géricault’s 1818-19 shipwreck painting Le Radeau de la Méduse. Constructed in the form of a radeau de fortune, this unusual patchwork assemblage of driftwood, lacquered glass, oil drums, giant oars and a ‘cloud’ roof resembles a large raft out of which juts an imposing ladder-cum-mast. The sculpture is laden with allusions to water’s contradictory power to save or destroy and to current international migration and the journeys many are forced to take in search of refuge. The raft was also the subject of a performance staged at the opening of the exhibition.

The Spirit is a larger than life female figure cast in bronze belonging to Orta’s ongoing series (Spirits of Huveaune). Weaving a link between past and present, Spirits refers to the universal water cycle and its poetic representation through myth and legend surrounding the history of Marseille’s Huveaune river, along which five public sculpture now permanently reside.

• http://www.studio-orta.com/en/artwork/28...
• http://www.ysp.co.uk/exhibitions/lucy-jo...