The Hepworth Wakefield and its Audience(s): The Importance of Scale, Space and Place in Constructing Social Relations in the Art Gallery Sarah Harvey Richardson Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Leeds School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies September, 2017 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2017 The University of Leeds and Sarah Harvey Richardson. Acknowledgements This research would not have been possible without the support and participation of Staff, Volunteers, Creative Practitioners and Trustees at The Hepworth Wakefield. I would also like to thank the Staff and Councillors at Wakefield District Council, the Arts Council, and Muse for taking the time to talk with me, our discussions have formed a vital part of this study. Helen Graham and Abigail Harrison Moore have been incredibly supportive supervisors, and I would like to express my gratitude for their advice and guidance which has been invaluable over the course of this study; also to the many colleagues and friends who have not only provided critical feedback over the past four years, but have also been a vital and steadfast source of inspiration and reassurance. I am extremely grateful for the continued intellectual and emotional generosity of my parents, and for my partner Sean whose unwavering encouragement and support has been critical to the completion of this study. Abstract Institutional knowledge of audiences is often framed around scaled notions of ‘local’, ‘national’, ‘international’, ‘community’ and so on. In analyses, however, the epistemological and ontological status of these terms is rarely questioned. If we are to gain a deeper understanding of knowledge production in the gallery, it is vital that the particular ways that spaces and scales are enacted and evoked by various actors in and around the organisation are explored. This thesis argues that by employing a methodological approach of situated action and relational assemblage it is possible not only to unpick such constructions of ‘local’ and ‘(inter)national’, but also to move beyond counterpositional or hierarchical thinking and practice towards more productive ways of working with and through complexity. This exploration will be grounded in the organisational practices and social relations that form a particular art gallery, The Hepworth Wakefield. Drawing on my autoethnographic experiences as a colleague and a researcher within the organisation, the ambition of this thesis is to explore the dynamic processes of different practices, ideas, materials and affects assembling (dissembling and reassembling) at different moments to create different performances and enactions of The Hepworth Wakefield. Each are perspectives on reality, which can be mobilised at different times and in different ways, sometimes brought to the fore, sometimes pushed to the background. By attending closely to processes and actions in the Gallery at particular moments (situated action), this thesis will trace (re)configurations of The Hepworth Wakefield – as ‘local’, as ‘(inter)national, as ‘community’, as ‘artworld’, and so on – and will explore the productive possibilities of acknowledging and celebrating the multiple realities and complexities of the Gallery, and propose ways of moving forward in these differences, rather than seeking their resolution. Contents List of Tables ............................................................................................................... 1 List of Figures .............................................................................................................. 2 Introduction: The Hepworth Wakefield and its Audience(s) ....................................... 4 The Hepworth Wakefield ..................................................................................................... 9 Methodology: The Hepworth Wakefield and I .................................................................. 13 Thesis Structure .................................................................................................................. 21 Chapter 1: Scale, Space and Place ............................................................................. 30 Unpicking the Concepts of ‘Scale’, ‘Space’ and ‘Place’.................................................... 34 Considering a More Progressive Sense of Place ................................................................ 53 Exploring Topologies and Heterogeneous Materiality ....................................................... 58 Celebrating Multiplicities and Complexities ...................................................................... 68 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 2: Museum Topologies ................................................................................. 80 The Space(s) of the Museum: Euclidean, Discursive and Folded ...................................... 82 The Journey to Des Hughes: Euclidean Space and The Hepworth Wakefield ................... 84 Barbara Hepworth and Modernist Art Discourse: The Museum as Discursive Space ....... 90 Complex Topological Space ............................................................................................ 113 The Folded Space of Des Hughes: Stretch Out and Wait ................................................ 121 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 127 Chapter 3: Place/Binaries ......................................................................................... 132 Wakefield Council and the Production of Place ............................................................... 135 Place and The Hepworth Wakefield: The Rhubarb Triangle & Other Stories................. 162 Spatiality of Governmentality: Socio-Spatial Cartography .............................................. 168 Binary Thinking: The Abstract and The Concrete ........................................................... 176 Leeds 2023: 100% Local and 100% International ........................................................... 186 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 199 Chapter 4: Audience(s) ............................................................................................ 202 What is ‘Audience’? ......................................................................................................... 205 The Museum and its Community/Communities ............................................................... 212 Segmentation, Classification and Symbolic Violence ...................................................... 230 Audience Segmentation and The Hepworth Wakefield ................................................... 241 The (Inter)national Museum: Cosmopolitanism in a Post-nation-state Era?.................... 266 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 273 Conclusion: Situated Action and the Assemblage of The Hepworth Wakefield ..... 277 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 288 Appendix A: Interviews ........................................................................................... 309 Round One Interviews ...................................................................................................... 309 Round Two Interviews ..................................................................................................... 310 Other Interviews ............................................................................................................... 310 Appendix B: Survey ................................................................................................. 312 Survey Introductory Text and Questions .......................................................................... 312 List of Tables Table 1: Most frequently used terms or identities to describe The Hepworth Wakefield’s visitors by the 29 survey respondents. Surveys completed October- November 2014 ........................................................................................................ 208 Table 2: Terms named by the 18 respondents who identified the audiences from The Hepworth Wakefield’s existing audience segmentation model. Surveys completed October-November 2014. ........................................................................................ 243 1 List of Figures Figure 1: Screenshot of a tweet by The Hepworth Wakefield, promoting their nomination for Museum of the Year Award 2017, Twitter, 10 May 2017. ............... 37 Figure 2: Hepworth in Yorkshire, Gallery 6, The Hepworth Wakefield. Photo: Sarah Harvey Richardson, March 2016. .............................................................................. 64 Figure 3: Installation view of Des Hughes: Stretch Out and Wait, including school children’s work seen to the left of the image. Photo: Stuart Whipps. Image courtesy The Hepworth Wakefield and Des Hughes. ..............................................................