Recommended by Lisa Le Feuvre
Lisa Le Feuvre is a curator, writer, editor and public speaker. She is the current Executive Director of Holt/Smithson Foundation. Prior, Le Feuvre was Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute, a part of the Henry Moore Foundation. She curated exhibitions that include Jiro Takamatsu: The Temperature of Sculpture, The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics, Gego: Line as Object, Katrina Palmer: The Necropolitan Line and The Event Sculpture and edited the Institute’s journal Essays on Sculpture.
In 2018 she was part of the Turner Prize Jury and has been on numerous panels, including those for the British representation at Venice Biennale and The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture. She is a non-executive Director of Book Works and sits on the Advisory Committee for the Artists’ Lives, a part of the British Library’s National Life Stories oral history programme.
What is your favourite art space to visit? Somewhere you have been that had brought you joy.
If we are talking museums I have a clear favourite: the Reina Sofia in Madrid. The collection is so rich, and each display has been driven by scholarly research. If we are talking artworks then I will lay my bias on the line: Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels in Utah, USA and Robert Smithson’s Broken Circle / Spiral Hill in Emmen, The Netherlands.
Robert Smithson, Broken Circle/Spiral Hill; view of Spiral Hill (1971). Emmen, Holland. © Holt/Smithson Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels (1973–76). Great Basin Desert, Utah. Collection Dia Art Foundation with support from Holt/Smithson Foundation. © Holt/Smithson Foundation and Dia Art Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: ZCZ Films/James Fox, courtesy Holt/Smithson Foundation.
What have you seen in the past year (2019) which made you think you are looking at a new way of experiencing art? This can be an artwork, an exhibition, or a space.
I made my first trip to Chicago a couple of months ago and it was revelation. What a city! The Art Institute of Chicago is incredible, and then you can walk just a few blocks at see the Mies van der Rohe Post Office and a Sol LeWitt building façade.
What show, gallery, institution or museum have you visited that you thought was worth the travel?
It always is worth the travel. Art is there to be perceived with all of the senses. The place that springs to mind is travelling to Caracas, Venezuela to see works by Gego. In researching the exhibition of her work Lines as Objects, that took place in Leeds, Hamburg and Stuttgart, I travelled to see her foundation, her works in museums, and her public works in the city
If time and budget were not an obstacle, where would you like to visit (or revisit) from the places listed on The Art Pilgrim?
Well I would like to go everywhere! Looking at the list, I have been to I think around two-thirds of the places but never to Naoshima. That would be a dream come true.
In your opinion, which city, other than London, Berlin or New York, has a really interesting and exciting art scene?
Many years ago Independent Curators International published a vade mecum for starting out curators. It is brimming with good advice. Mari Carmen Ramirez a gave short response that started ‘see art, always travel.’ I would disagree that exciting art scenes are only to be found in Western Europe and in cities. Go everywhere, and travel curious.
If the world were coming to an end, and there was space for only one museum collection on the spaceship, which collection would you nominate and why?
Well the world may well be coming to an end. In truth I am too much of a pragmatist to answer this question. Who would see it? Where would it be stored? Might there be something more important than art to put on this spaceship sanctuary? Collections and exhibitions are complex – and wonderfully so. I will need a few months to research this one.
Anything you might like to add:-
We need to think carefully about how, why and where we travel. Sometimes the most radical art is under our noses: we should look at our home locations with the same eyes we use as when we travel.