Country life: Hauser & Wirth's new Somerset gallery


The contemporary art gallery Hauser & Wirth has spaces in Zurich, London and New York. So when it was announced it was going to open an art gallery in deepest Somerset, the question on everyone’s lips, was ‘Why Bruton’?


blueprint

By Cate St. Hill

Durslade Farm, a loose collection of Grade II-listed farm buildings, stables and piggeries, sits on the rural outskirts of Bruton, flanked by open fields and ancient stonewalls. It neighbours Worthy Farm, home of the Glastonbury Festival, to the north and the Palladian mansion of Stourhead to the east, while the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge rests a little further away. It was once a working farm, with granaries, a milking parlour and threshing barn, but it's now the latest outpost of art gallery Hauser & Wirth.

The pigsty and old threshing barn have been transformed into contemporary galleries. Photo: Hélène Binet. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth
The pigsty and old threshing barn have been transformed into contemporary galleries. Photo: Hélène Binet. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth

It may seem like an odd choice of location for an international and -- let's not forget -- commercial art gallery, but it is an area the founders Iwan and Manuela Wirth hold dear. They moved from Zurich to London in 2005, with a plan to return to Switzerland soon after. 'We fell deeply in love with the English countryside and its people,' says the Swiss-born Iwan. 'When we moved to Bruton it was a complete accident. I believe people don't choose places, places choose them.'

The pigsty and old threshing barn have been transformed into contemporary galleries. Photo: Hélène Binet. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth

They already had three galleries in London, New York and Zurich and all in sensitively restored historic buildings. The former Löwenbräu brewery became Hauser & Wirth Zurich in 1996, while the Lutyens-designed former bank became its Piccadilly gallery in 2003. The most recent one, New York, opened last year in the former home of popular nightclub and skating rink Roxy. In January 2016, there are plans for a Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles.

The pigsty and old threshing barn have been transformed into contemporary galleries. Photo: Hélène Binet. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth
The pigsty and old threshing barn have been transformed into contemporary galleries. Photo: Hélène Binet. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth

The Wirths found Durslade Farm in 2009, bordering on ruin. At first they weren't sure what to do with the space, but it soon became clear that where they went, art would follow. Bruton already had At the Chapel, a former chapel converted into a sleek, art-loving hotel and restaurant by ex-Londoner Catherine Butler in the centre of town (Butler will now run the new gallery's restaurant as well). So at first the gallery came from an initial need for an office away from London, then they found that artist friends wanted to stay, and Hauser & Wirth Somerset was born. 'It was an intuitive process creating an art space in the country,' remarks Iwan. 'We got the sense that there was a huge appetite for culture here.'

The pigsty and old threshing barn have been transformed into contemporary galleries. Photo: Hélène Binet. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth
The pigsty and old threshing barn have been transformed into contemporary galleries. Photo: Hélène Binet. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth

They teamed up with Paris-based architect Luis Laplace to transform the rundown stables into a gallery and education space alongside a restaurant, bookshop and office. Argentine-born Laplace first worked with Selldorf Architects, which designed both Hauser & Wirth's spaces in London and New York, before setting up on his own in 2004. Previous projects include artist Cindy Sherman's house in Paris and the Wirths' own home, near to the gallery in Bruton. On Hans Ulrich Obrist's recommendation, they also brought in Dutch horticulturist Piet Oudolf, known for his work on New York's High Line and the centret of Peter Zumthor's 2011 Serpentine Pavilion.

Phyllida Barlow’s new installation GIG fills a previously derelict farm building. Photo: Phyllida Barlow Courtesy The Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne
Phyllida Barlow's new installation GIG fills a previously derelict farm building. Photo: Phyllida Barlow Courtesy The Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne

'It really is the fusion of what we're passionate about: art, artists, community, landscape, architecture, and food. It offered us the opportunity to combine all these things in one place,' says Iwan. As such, it's much more than an art gallery, it's a bit like being invited into the Wirths' home. 'In many ways they are the ideal clients because they're used to working with artists, so they understand that things need to be developed and that things aren't written in stone. The briefing of the project evolved; it was never from the beginning, "This is what we want to do," it was always an ongoing conversation,' says Laplace.

GIG was created in response to the architecture and surrounding landscape of Durslade Farm. Photo: Phyllida Barlow. Courtesy The Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne Hélène Binet
GIG was created in response to the architecture and surrounding landscape of Durslade Farm. Photo: Phyllida Barlow. Courtesy The Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne Hélène Binet

The old farm buildings have been renovated and connected with two new wings to create a continuous internal space and an enclosed central courtyard. Visitors enter via the former farmyard, which is currently marked by Subodh Gupta's larger-than-life stainless steel bucket and a Paul McCarthy sculpture. The former cowsheds, arranged in a horseshoe, house the reception, shop, bar and restaurant, from which visitors can enter the first gallery in the 18th-century threshing barn. Exhibition spaces stretch through five gallery rooms, from the low-ceilinged and intimate pigsty, with its exposed beams and painted brick walls on the west, to the larger and more spacious new gallery to the north. Floors are unpolished concrete and huge oak and glass doors give glimpses of the work outside.

Architect Luis Laplace was inspired by precedents of cloisters in the local area. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth
Architect Luis Laplace was inspired by precedents of cloisters in the local area. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth

The threshing barn and pigsty have a domestic scale and appear almost as if they have formed around Phyllida Barlow's installation, GIG, the first exhibition in the space. Following on from her commission for Tate Britain, Barlow created a sequence of pieces specifically for the Hauser & Wirth gallery. Lopsided and brightly painted wooden cogs extend up into the rafters, while doorways appear blockaded by tightly bound masses of studio detritus. It brings the artwork right to the visitors' eyes and fingertips, so they have to duck and dive to avoid crashing into Barlow's suspended fabric pompoms or cardboard constructions.

Durslade Farm
Durslade Farm

It's a bit like traversing through tripwire beams. But it's not a precious space: Barlow has deliberately orchestrated the pieces so we get up close to her work, and the gallery is perfectly suited for it. Says Laplace: 'I like to bring art closer to people, I like it to be intimate. All of a sudden the art comes to you and you're part of it. It's something I do in people's homes; they don't need to be scared of art. Today when people go to museums they are standing 2m away from the art. My job is to bring art to our ordinary life. Of course art is something precious, yet it can be something very close to you. It doesn't have to be so far away.'

A sandstone colonnade makes the transition from inside to out subtle and sheltered. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth
A sandstone colonnade makes the transition from inside to out subtle and sheltered. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth

It's certainly a democratic space, without the 'do not cross the line' marks of other galleries. Indeed, the gallery as a whole is rather democratic -- open to the public for free throughout the year, and with a strong education programme, including allotments, summer schools and family-focused Saturdays, which will no doubt appeal to the local community.

Guillermo Kuitca painted directly on to the walls of the dining room in the farmhouse. Courtesy The Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Aaron Schuman
Guillermo Kuitca painted directly on to the walls of the dining room in the farmhouse. Courtesy The Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Aaron Schuman

The transition from old to new is a natural one, and the courtyard appears as a surprise after the almost claustrophobic spaces of the old buildings. This is the heart of the project, bordered on two sides by a crisp sandstone colonnade and occupied by Louise Bourgeois' piece Spider. The harsh lines of the columns are softened slightly with hanging lights and Oudolf's landscaping. With the sun shining on a warm summer's day, it feels like you are in southern Italy, not southern Somerset.

– Martin Creed’s Everything is Going to Be Alright lights up the farmhouse at night. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth
Martin Creed's Everything is Going to Be Alright lights up the farmhouse at night. Courtesy: Hauser & Wirth

'Cloisters are an architectural element that have been present in this region and I thought it was a good way of resolving and integrating the new buildings,' says Laplace. 'I also went to an English school in Buenos Aires, which had colonnades. I was always a very solitary kid and I liked to walk round the school. The idea is that you navigate from one building to another without realising that you are transporting yourself from one period to another. I want you to feel sheltered.'

On the lawn opposite the gallery, the former farmhouse has been treated completely di_ erently. It was once used as the setting for the _ lm Chocolat, with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, but it will now house artists and friends who come to stay, as well as being open to the public. Laplace has kept the memory of the old farmhouse by exposing walls and existing _ replaces, and sourcing vintage items from local markets. Martin Creed's illuminated neon letters that state, 'Everything is Going to be Alright' mark the entrance, while artwork by Roni Horn, Paul McCarthy and Ida Applebroog is dotted around the rooms. Says Laplace, 'It's where I break all the rules of the academy, things cross boundaries, you don't know where the art starts and where the architecture ends. Everything is very ambiguous and you don't know what is good taste, what is bad taste. It's like the dessert of the project.'

Artists Pipilotti Rist and Guillermo Kuitca both spent time in the area as artists-in-residence (Hauser & Wirth has transformed a former brewery in Bruton into artists' studios) and created work for the farmhouse. In the main living space, a film by Rist is projected on to the wall and ceiling, while Kuitca painted cubiststyle markings directly on to the walls of the dining room.

Piet Oudolf’s sketch for the perennial meadow at Hauser & Wirth Somerset. Photo: Piet Oudolf. Courtesy The Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne
Piet Oudolf's sketch for the perennial meadow at Hauser & Wirth Somerset. Photo: Piet Oudolf. Courtesy The Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne

'I had no previous image or script in mind but began in one corner of the room and started expanding until I arrived again at where I had begun,' says Buenos Aires-based Kuitca. 'Every day was an improvisation; following the images, hearing as opposed to seeing them, the whole process became closer to a musical composition. This summer, at that particular moment, in Somerset was very warm and dry and though I didn't expect to change my usual sombre palette -- the quality of the light seeped into the painting -- sombre tones grew vibrant and bold.' Turner-prize winner Mark Wallinger was the next to take up residence as Blueprint went to press.

Behind the new gallery is Oudolf's 6000 sq m stand-alone meadow, which snakes up a hill and contains more than 26,000 plants. Self-taught, Oudolf's gardens are most famous for their naturalistic planting, with unrestrained swathes of purples, pinks and golds, grasses and structured pathways. His vision for Hauser & Wirth includes a series of paths cut through the vegetation, inviting visitors to wander through the garden, and a pond for moistureloving plants. If the gallery had been just an art gallery in the middle of the countryside, it wouldn't have worked. The strength of the project lies in the loose cluster of programmes: involving the community, connecting to the landscape, providing a place for people to come, meet and eat. And that could really only happen in Somerset, where the slightly bohemian art set go to escape the chains of London. The garden has yet to mature, but when it does, it will be reason enough to visit Durslade Farm.








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