Art

What to do with the 20-bedroom stately pile as it nears collapse, while the family funds can’t even stretch to a new Barbour or a pair of Hunter wellies?

It seems the only way to brush the cobwebs off a creaky old mansion or an under-visited rural attraction nowadays is to stage an ambitious, preferably edgy, art event in the grounds; that way, city types like us get a weekend break without having to forego our regular dose of culture – it’s a new phenomenon I like to call ‘country-house contemporary’.

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The modern-art makeover is largely modelled on the runaway successes of recently updated properties such as the Robert Adam-designed Compton Verney near Stratford-upon-Avon (www.comptonverney.org.uk), which was transformed from a derelict estate into a marvellous gallery complex hosting serious exhibitions, with an ace Capability Brown garden attached. Similarly, the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester (www.pallant.org.uk) was once simply a Grade I-listed Queen Anne townhouse before an award-winning refit and extension in 2006 made it into a spanking new museum of modern art.

Chadwick's 'Seated Couple', Chatsworth

While the antique and the cutting-edge can happily live side-by-side, it’s often something of a forced marriage of convenience. Take ‘Beyond Limits’, the annual open-air sculpture exhibition at Chatsworth House, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire near Sheffield (www.chatsworth.org). For two months from September, the gardens will be overrun by some 20 monumental works, the ruse being that they are all for sale through auction house Sotheby’s, which uses Chatsworth as a showground for bulky and expensive objects that can’t be displayed in its London salerooms. Despite the commercial nature of this relationship, it would be unfair to depict the Devonshires as money-grubbing landed gentry and they certainly aren’t philistines when it comes to contemporary art, as each year they invest in new outdoor pieces to add to the classic statuary already at Chatsworth, with a new piece by Allen Jones being installed this month. What the country-house set have realised, though, is that contemporary art is big business and big sculpture is often a real draw.

The current crop of aristocrats is learning from the pioneers of selling sculpture parks such as Wilfred Cass, the 83-year-old entrepreneur behind the Cass Sculpture Foundation in Goodwood (www.sculpture.org.uk), and Lady Madeleine Bessborough, the driving force of the New Art Centre near Salisbury (www.sculpture.uk.com). It’s not all about business; indeed, the New Art Centre’s current outdoor display, ‘New Generation Revisited’, is a timely recreation of the legendary 1965 Whitechapel Gallery exhibition of British sculptors and, more importantly, a fresh look at works by Phillip King, William Tucker and Anthony Caro that are more often found in white-box galleries and storage facilities than set among the rolling hills of Wiltshire.

Jeppe Hein, 'Simplified Mirror Labyrinth I', Sudeley Castle

There’s no doubt that a spot of old-world charm can actually enhance the experience of new-world art and this has been the theme of Sudeley Castle’s (www.sudeleycastle.co.uk) annual sculpture bashes, with this year’s taking an even more playful approach. Entitled ‘The Artist’s Playground’, the artists have been commissioned to engage with their surroundings, resulting in a Gothic-style treehouse by Henry Krokatsis, a giant pink pitchfork protruding from the ground by Michael Craig-Martin, a Jeppe Hein mirrored labyrinth and a Lawrence Weiner installation in the castle’s pond. Lest you think this to be the ultimate in harmonious country-house contemporary synergy, all the works are, of course, for sale through rival auction house Phillips de Pury.

There is another summer event at the same Gloucestershire estate that’s less profit-driven, but no less of the moment. Sudeley Castle is hosting a boutique art festival put on by Gavin Turk’s House of Fairytales, titled ‘The Festival of the Creative Act’ (www.houseoffairytales.org). Over the bank holiday weekend, August 23-25, artists, musicians and performers will endeavour to entertain scores of kids and adults alike by creating an alternate, child-friendly world of fantasy passports and time-travel portals, complete with faux police officers and fake money designed by the Chapmans, Peter Blake and Turk himself.

Henry Krokatsis, 'Ambo', Sudeley

A much bigger festival, The Big Chill (www.bigchill.net), in the shadow of the spectacular Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire, also has a healthy programme of art events, provided by London’s very own ICA, which is staging brilliant mock-rock group Lustfaust (the invention of artist Jamie Shovlin) and a performance of ‘Dub Action Painting’ by none other than Lee Scratch Perry, in addition to curator Alice Sharp’s surprisingly credible (compared with all other festival ‘art’ offerings) after-dark art tours. This year’s ‘Big Chill Art Trail’ will include Simon Faithfull’s ‘Fake Moon’, a light-filled helium balloon that will illuminate the festival-goers at night, as well as Francis Upritchard’s colourful, sculpted ‘dudes’ who’ll be awkwardly sited in ditches and trees, certainly adding to the feeling that something contemporary is stirring in the countryside.

Big Chill, Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire, HR8 1RL Aug 1-3

For more festivals, visit the Time Out festivals microsite.