Treasures Revealed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Polly Checkland Harding
What might an exhibition of items chosen by people including the author of Chocolate, the Shadow Home Secretary,* and an art critic for The Telegraph look like? And, perhaps a better question: why would such an exhibition occur?
Treasures Revealed comes as part of at Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s 40th anniversary year; artists, collectors and supporters of the National Arts Education Archive (NAEA), which is managed by YSP, have chosen 40 inspirational objects, collections and ideas from the NAEA itself, in celebration of the archive’s documentation of developments in art education over the last century. Responding the to the question, ‘what is your treasure?’, selectors including award-winning author of 15 novels Joanne Harris, artist and agitator Bob and Roberta Smith and Labour politician Yvette Cooper have chosen pieces from the NAEA’s 100 plus catalogued collections.
The result is an exhibition that includes the necklace of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, alongside a black and white photograph of her performing The Dying Swan, a solo that was choreographed for her in 1905, and which she went on to perform around 4,000 times. This, alongside objects from the Toy and Art-based Game Collection of Don Pavey, artist, historian, teacher and co-founder of the NAEA; the Don Pavey collection features 329 items including games, puzzles and a kinetic-art robot that Pavey used as teaching materials.
On display in the NAEA Gallery at YSP 11am-3pm Saturday to Tuesday, Treasures Revealed is a collectively curated, eclectic way of celebrating the case for creativity and art in education.
* At the time of writing.
