Fascinating puzzles that pose mysterious questions – Alison Wilding, Whitworth, Manchester, review
Mark Hudson, The Telegraph
April 2019
Born in Blackburn in 1948, Alison Wilding was pretty much the token woman in the early Eighties New British Sculpture movement, which brought a breath of street energy to the British art scene with trashy materials and provocative contrasts in scale and texture.
Her sensual juxtapositions of silk, wax and oil with all-too solid bronze and wood, made her the most prominent woman in this male-dominated group. But where Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor became household names, and Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon and Bill Woodrow forged major international reputations, Wilding sank into relative obscurity, despite two Turner Prize nominations (in 1992 and 1998).
However, a few days ago, a display of monumental works spanning 20 years of Wilding’s career opened at Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery, while in a few weeks’ time, her Memorial to British Victims of Terrorism Overseas will be installed at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Later this year a substantial retrospective opens at Bexhill-on-Sea’s De La Warr Pavilion. Is Wilding finally having her moment? […]